


show me why you're strong

by fr0ntier



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (not really just a mix of mcu and 616 canon), (obvs), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Beefy!Bucky, Bisexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha-centric, Non-binary character, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Red Room, Sorry Not Sorry, also, especially female friendship, or a monster, this is what we call a 'slow burn'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:18:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 76,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7405174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fr0ntier/pseuds/fr0ntier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-Civil War, later before, during and after Black Panther. </p><p>Natasha disagrees that she's qualified to help someone suffering from PTSD and complicated identity issues and traumatic memories stemming from decades of abuse. After all, she's working (reluctantly and with very little success) through her own shit. </p><p>Or, the one where Natasha is reminded that her family can be chosen, that the heart in her chest is human, and that sometimes Sam is right - a playlist with 99.8% Marvin Gaye tracks <i>does</i> make the hard days a little easier</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i hope you guys enjoy. i haven't written in SO long. i have most of the plot and the direction i want to go for the next few chapters all figured out, but i have no idea how long this is going to be. expect updates once or twice a week. c:
> 
> thank you to the friends who beta'd for me and gave wonderful feedback. you're all the best ^^
> 
> title: from james blake's [retrograde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XClvMMxBg1k)  
> my tumblr: [fr0ntier](fr0ntier.tumblr.com)  
> spotify playlist for this fic: [sharp teeth](http://spoti.fi/29vuB76)

 

"–and what I really meant to say is,  
girls like us are fluent in silence.  
When we bite our tongues, we  
swallow the blood."  
                                                     -h. y. k., excerpt from _EVERY PLACE IS EMPTY UNTIL WE LEAVE IT_

 

* * *

 

All of her covers were blown. Again.

There was no damage control for this one. She had _tried_ to be impassive, unbiased, and she had failed. Now, for her trouble, she was on a wanted list alongside everyone who had stood with Steve.

Isaiah couldn’t help. Too many corporate and government webs, he said. Her contacts were dust in the wind. Any favors she had been setting aside for a rainy day vanished into thin air as well. After SHIELD fell, she’d had Steve and Sam to help withstand the utter shitstorm that surrounded her after her past and sins had been leaked. Of course now that she had the combination of Ross and Stark’s betrayed ire against her, she was alone.

The worst part was that it was no one’s fault but her own.

She had disappeared out of habit, really. Fight or flight panic, deep triggers of conditioning that might never be washed away, had made her go. Sure, she’d been the force that allowed for their escape, but the guilt was still there.

It had been sudden, with only a single text sent to Steve from one of her many burners. Even that had taken her a week after she’d left to work up to. God, she’d told them all over _text_ . There had been no good reason for it, either. Just selfish desperation borne out of guilt. That guilt also made it impossible not to imagine the furrows of stress on Clint’s face _(that really only had appeared in the last handful of years, no thanks to her)_ deep with worry. She imagined Sam tense and cagey in that prison alone, imagined Steve driving himself into the ground with worry because he was so stubbornly, terribly loyal. There was no way she could have told them to their faces she was going and still left.

A lie by omission, really. The truth was a matter of circumstance, but she could count the number of times on one hand that she had repaid their loyalty and patience with transparency.

She had _cried_ , goddammit. After Leipzig, after her confrontation with Stark, she knew she wouldn’t have anywhere else to go. He was arrogant to a fault, not stupid. He’d likely been working alongside on a punishing political mess to tie her up in, hold her accountable. The rest were taken to the prison, Steve had disappeared, and she…  
  
A single packed bag, arrangements for Liho, and then she was gone. Her fleeing had disrespected her reasons for joining the Avengers and abandoned the boys. Took advantage of their friendship.

 _Friendship_. Fuck. 

She couldn’t even pretend to be uncompromised anymore.  

Afterwards, when everything had quieted down, Clint had tracked her to one of her last safe-houses, hugged her tight, and told her that he didn’t blame her. Sam called her one random Friday at midnight to tell her the same, excited that Wakandan broadcasting picked up _Chopped_ better than Stark’s broadband ever could. Steve was the last. He had the insufferably sweet gall to apologize for his lateness over two-hour long conversation, as if he’d been late for their usual Saturday brunch meetup instead of being halfway across the world seeking asylum in a futuristic isolationist nation. As if she hadn’t abandoned them.

They were just too goddamn good for her.  
  
So, no, she couldn’t pretend. She was absolutely compromised. That was largely the reason that when, despite the circumstances, Steve contacted her once more and asked for her help, she found herself caving.

 _“Nat. Please."_  

_She sighed. “Steve, listen-”_

_“Sam’s going too. If they need to bring him out – if he wakes up and there’s no one there for him. He needs the help of someone who understands, and Sam will be gone too, and neither of us_ get _it like you do, and…” There was a brief pause. Knowing him, he was likely running a nervous hand through his hair, struggling with the admission. “I don’t want him to be alone anymore than he already has.”_

And goddamn, _that_ had done it. Steve had woken up alone and confused in a strange place and of course he didn’t want the same for his best friend. He knew she would come to that conclusion, too, but at least he’d been slightly merciful. She would have broken much faster if the conversation had been in person – simply imagining Steve with his honest, heart-broken pout and pleading eyes made her feel guilty for even considering turning his request down.

So despite the potential political clusterfuck, despite her sense of self preservation and determination to stay uninvolved in _that_ particular situation for her own sanity and safety, she agreed.

 

 

That’s how Natasha found herself seated comfortably on a private jet sent by the Wakandan embassy. Sentimentality had her running towards a problem instead of away from it for once.

She snorted quietly. If only Madame and the handlers could see her now. They’d be...well, they’d be disappointed. Clicking their tongues in the way they all used to.

Mocking.  
  
_Arabesque, Nataliya,_ arabesque.

Judgemental.

 _Plié_ , _plié, sauté._

Amused by her weakness.

 _Upwards, no hesitation, smooth between the third and fourth ribs._  
  
The memory of their voices - always sharp, always cruel - seemed to reverberate in her skull. The cacophony was almost loud enough to silence the drone of the jet.

 _Where has mercy lead you, Nataliya? What has softness wrought? Nothing lasts. Trust is illusionary.  You are too intelligent, too clever, for silly notions of friendship and loyalty and love and-_  
  
She was shaken from her thoughts by the ringtone of her personal cell. The jet had descended into Wakandan airspace and her phone found service again as a result. It began to load all of the texts she received during the flight.

cbarton: hey look @ this pizza slice costume kate found at the pet store

srogers: thank u, nat. i know u don’t like presents, but i left u something in my room at the embassy. U should have access. will update u as much as the mission permits. stay safe.

swilson: internet h8s stark & turned him into a meme check it <9 attached images>  
  
She thumbed through the pictures Sam included, smothering loud laughter with a hand to her mouth. God, but she loved her boys. She would take the weakness of sentimentality over the cold, cruel unreality of the Red Room any day.

  


  
When she stepped down from the jet, the sky was cloudless and dark-tinged at the edges with fog like it had just rained. The ground miraged about a yard in front of her. It was _not_ a dry heat. Natasha grimaced at the way her hair immediately clung to the back of her neck, swiped it away while ignoring the dip of unease in her stomach, and shut her eyes.  
   
_Out of her class, Nataliya displays the most efficiently adaptability in foreign situations._

She could do this. She would do this for Steve, for Sam, for-

Natasha glanced around.  
  
She had once heard Wakanda described as a metropolis of science, secrecy, and magic; the future of humanity defined. So it was with little surprise she found herself staring like a hypnotized child at both the metallic and sandstone architecture that stretched into the sky. Each construction rose majestically as unique entities, but together the shapes, gorgeously organized on a framework that rose out of the jungle, were united and cohesive. Even the contrast of nature and man-made structure was beautiful, like the two had never existed separately.

Here and there she could make out features of hulking panther statues, set between buildings, sitting on them or carved into the faces. Some looked as if they had paused mid-stride, as if they were truly living and breathing felines instead of stone. They were magnificent and terrifying all at once, and each seemed to look on her as she was - an unwelcome intruder. Further beyond the heart of the metropolis, a great paw and head rose from the canopy of trees. The snarling mouth and ears drawn back made her feel young and uneasy.

She took pride in her professional skill, but she was so dumbstruck by the scenery that she didn’t even register the melodious click of heels behind her.

“It never fails to be amusing, that expression,” came a heavily accented feminine voice over her shoulder.

Natasha immediately steeled herself from jumping; she could at least keep the personal delusion that no one could sneak up on her. She turned around with what she hoped was her most impressive unconcerned face.

“Natasha Romanoff?”

“I try to be, on most days.”

Her company didn’t seem to find that funny, judging by the way she rolled her eyes. “I am Majda, of the Dora Milaje.”

Natasha didn’t bother extending her hand. The gesture likely would have been unwelcome, if it was even returned.

“Well –”

“We have fought Widows before you and won,” Majda said coolly. She was stunning. Tall enough to tower over Natasha, with dark umber skin and even darker eyes. They were shrewd and searching, but disinterested. Unchallenged.

“Many were sent to infiltrate Wakanda and all were returned back to your Red Room dead.”

Christ. Of course they had won.

“Exactly why I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to be here on an invitation.”

Majda’s gaze rose from Natasha’s feet back to her eyes, then narrowed. Natasha thought the corners of her mouth might have flicked upwards, but wouldn’t put her life on a silly, dangerous whim like that.

“If the time comes, I would like the opportunity to best you. Fights with your kind have always been the closest to a challenge we have experienced." It wasn’t arrogant, just matter of fact.

“If the time comes, hopefully I’ll be two continents away. If I can’t manage that, I request you at least make it fast.”

Natasha wasn’t arrogant either. She knew when to run from a fight, and when to flatter. The Dora Milaje were superior spies and warriors, and it was conducive to her survival that the fact was acknowledged. She just hoped that the deadly grin she received in response was one of amusement.

“Do not look so frightened, Widow. You are His Majesty’s guest, and thus safe under protection...” _Until the very second you are not  considered a guest,_ was the unspoken end to that thought. “I am only here to escort you to the embassy.”  
  
Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think I would be that much of a safety concern.”

Majda scoffed indifferently and Natasha felt her stomach twist in shame. “You must realize how unwelcome you truly are here. The safety of the people or the king is not our concern, in this case. Your presence here is a danger to yourself. More than you could ever be to us.” She glanced down at Natasha. “There are those of us who would not question the wisdom of His Majesty, but cannot help to wonder what the sudden influx of outsiders might do to Wakanda.” Her dark eyes narrowed, although she set of her jaw betrayed her infinite amusement at the shorter woman’s discomfort.

“Historically, the people of this world have not had much luck granting _outsiders_ any level of trust.”  
  
“I – yes.”

Majda laughed, sharp and full. Even that seemed intimidating.

“Mm. The asylum granted to your ally was not met with overwhelming criticism, because he is a victim in need of medical and psychological help only we are capable of providing. However, I cannot say the same for the arrival of the Captain and yourself.”  
  
Natasha could only blink up at her, nodding in what she hoped came across as understanding. Majda shook her head slightly, and began to stride away.

“Come, and do not fall behind. It would not do you any favors to fall out of my company.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Or good graces.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Later, much later, after Natasha had been shown to the embassy and lead down the maze-like halls of T’Challa’s palace, she finally took a moment to relax.

The King of Wakanda thankfully took no insult to her immediate slumping into one of the chairs in his office. She had made a crack earlier, as she followed him through the maze-like building, about expecting a fairytale throne room. He had only laughed.

(She suspected there actually was one.)

“I had the pleasure of meeting one of your girlfriends.” Natasha didn’t need to look at him to know his face twisted into a bemused grin. “It’s hard to remember a time when I actually felt _threatened_ by a threat.”

“Hmm. I would pay to see the consequences of you saying such in front of them.” The way he sunk into the plush chair opposite her, instead of behind the desk, reminded her of a lazily content cat.

Natasha wasn’t sure what to make of his good humor and congeniality. She had spoke to him only once or twice, but as Agent Romanoff; as the Black Widow. He almost made her feel more personal and familiar with him as _Natasha_ , even if that was impossible, and it threw her off.

She hummed, not quite a laugh, but an acknowledgement of her poor manners. “Which thing do you want me to say? One of those would go better than the other.”

“Probably,” T’Challa chuckled, and watched her carefully. He sobered a moment later, let silence hang between them for another. “There are…concerns about your nature. Not just as a double agent or a former Soviet spy.” His teeth glinted when he smiled at her. “As a current intelligence agent. An Avenger. An outsider, above all…and none of those concerns are unfounded.”

He stood, rounded the desk, and gazed out the huge windows behind it.  
  
“But I trust you because the Captain trusts you, as does Sam Wilson. Perhaps we’re all fools. But I believe they are good men, and the way you behaved during our encounter with Anthony Stark…” he glanced over his shoulder at her. “You are good too, I believe. Or trying very hard to be. So I have done my best to give you as much access and freedom as possible, for the benefit of our mutual… interest.”  
  
Natasha inclined her head in gratitude, unsure of what she should say. Diplomacy was different now. There was no need to be evasive or secretive, and considering flattery seemed almost insulting. On top of that, she felt untrained and unprepared for the set of authority in his shoulders. It settled into him as naturally as the kindness in his dark eyes. He reminded her of Steve, in the way that he could seem so young and be so unfathomably old, already.

“Have you gone to see your friend yet?”

She tensed. It was probably visible.

“He’s not my-” Natasha began, agitated. She took a breath and then relaxed, horrible guilt bubbling in her stomach. Fuck, and her face had even flushed in shame. She hoped it wasn’t as unnoticeable as it felt. “There’s no personal attachment, which is why I suspect Steve requested I come. I’m here on business.”

“Of course.”

Dark eyes openly searched her.

“Of course,” he said again, much more decisive _(Or amused? He was hard for her to read to read)_ and stood.

Protector of Wakanda, Black Panther, indeed. She’s never seen someone move with such a fluid combination of grace and wicked lethality before, not even –

“Then you have my apologies for the slip of tongue. It just seems like an awful lot of work, you must realize. For someone who is not a friend. Who you have no personal attachment towards. To become an enemy of the state, a fugitive, it-”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He only shook his head after a moment and smiled, more to himself than to her. “I suppose not.”  

She took that as the invitation for an out that it was, stood and thanked him, and left.

  


_Somewhere in the pacific...._

Nick Fury relaxed on a hammock between two palm trees, swaying gently atop a grassy knoll. His phone began to chime the theme song of _Alias_.

nromv : i take back everything i ever said about wanting to go straight.

He smiled, stretched until his spine popped, and tossed the phone aside with indulgent fondness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's life has a funny habit of getting more complicated with each passing day.

“In my dream, I built a funeral pyre.  
For myself, you understand.  
I thought I had suffered enough. 

I thought this was the end of my body:  
fire  
seemed the right end for hunger;  
they were the same thing.”

                                                     -Louise Glück, from “Inferno”, _Poems 1962-2012_

 

* * *

 

Natasha had traveled to every continent, killed in the streets most major cities of the world. She was a super spy, a master strategist and problem-solver. So to admit to herself that she was _lost_ was absolutely infuriating.

Wakanda’s architectural style was, in a word, confounding. She’d passed probably a hundred or more windows as she struggled to navigate the winding hallways, stairs, and vestibules of the palace. The modernity and streamlined elements in its design made the structure seem…alien. She felt like an extra on some space odyssey film set each time she gazed out at the skyscrapers and urban spaces that made up Wakanda’s capital. _Ridley Scott_ , Natasha mused as she walked, _Eat your heart out._ It was beautiful, neoteric and archaic styles blended so expertly that she imagined the scenery belonged to another planet altogether. While T’Challa’s palace itself was a stunning example of retrofuturism, the rest of the city (almost foggy with the distance of the view and her tired eyes) juxtaposed with the mysterious jungle landscape beyond had her dizzy with wonder.

 And, although she found herself hopelessly lost several times within the maze-like corridors, she had to admit there were less impressive places to be disoriented. Not for the first time, Natasha was struck with how _behind_ the rest of the world seemed in comparison. 

 _It’s not even that confusing,_ she assured herself as she retraced her steps around another corner. _It’s just…hypnotizing. Distracting. This is incredible._ In addition to the impeccable architecture, each hallway and alcove she came across was decorated with traditional East African and Wakandan artifacts. Masks, carvings, beaded adornments, and pieces of historical technology hung upon the walls, framed huge modern windows. She liked the sculptures best of all, especially loved the few that stood proudly on pedestals behind sparkling glass cases.

A mixture of artistic appreciation and confused wandering made her journey to the guest quarters of the palace take nearly an hour…and another fifteen minutes to find her quarters. Finally, she came to a (slightly winded) stop at the location she’d been directed towards. A shoulder height glass panel mounted off-center of the seemingly blank wall before her flickered to life. 

 _“Romanova, Natalia Alianova.”_ affirmed a robotic voice. It sounded warmer and more human than most computerized identities she was used to back in the States…including Jarvis and Friday. Natasha was surprised it came pre-loaded with English. She made a note to thank T’Challa for being so considerate. “ _Your preloaded security allowances have been overridden. Future changes must be directly authorized._ ”

“Great,” she huffed, and directing a mistrustful gaze towards a tiny concealed audio grille behind the glass, adjusted the weight of the duffel bag on her shoulder. She sighed with relief as the strap slipped away and the bag fell to the ground. “Like I haven’t had enough AI for one lifetime.”

 _“Voice recognition established. Welcome, Natasha. If you prefer another name, your user settings can be accessed while inside.”_ There was a quick, nearly silent whirr, and the smooth plane of the wall split in two. It was aided, she assumed, by some type of sleek, futuristic engineering that would make Stark weak at the knees. 

And she was, in all honestly, very impressed. _Maybe dumbstruck is more accurate_ , she thought, mouth agape, when she took in the place she’d be living in for the foreseeable future. She picked up her bag and waited for the doors to slide open - when they did…

“Holy shit.”

Natasha had been expecting a modest, modern hotel room at best - she wouldn’t have judged her host if he had been less than generous, considering their history. She would have to send T’Challa an apologetic fruit basket or something. She dropped her bag and carry-on luggage at the door, and took in the view for a moment.

This place tipped more towards expensive, one-of-a-kind luxury apartment than basic three-star hotel room. There was absolutely nothing modest about the glossy, ultra-cool décor. Vibrant paintings framed the entryway’s transition into the living area. They pulled almost hypnotically towards the incredible view of the utopia below, and Natasha found herself equally transfixed by the elegant chandelier that hung from the ceiling, which had to be at least twelve feet high. Squares of glass framed soft light within, giving a dizzying illusion of peering into a crystalline kaleidoscope. In her peripheral vision, the dancing slivers of light that reflected off the tinkling fixture pulled her focus towards the windows. Birnin Zana, in all of it’s high-class, futuristic glory, stretched below her. Beyond it, mist from the jungle rose towards the clouds, bathing the surrounding mountains and landscape in soft grey dilution. She felt as if she could be in a waking dream.

“блин,” Natasha swore in awe. Her fingers left smears against the windows as they slid down back to her side. She breathed slow for several cycles, wiggling her toes in her boots, and then focused on taking in her surroundings.

Entry: Fashionable, contemporary. Hall table for keys and belongings, rack below for shoes. Small hallway closet.

Kitchen: Immaculate, tidy. There was an American-style waffle maker in the cupboard next to the stove amongst the pots and pans.Her stomach growled.

Side anteroom: Sunny, welcoming.Clearly had multiple intended uses. There were several large exotic plants by the floor to ceiling windows, dripping with humidity, and there was a simple office set-up in the opposite corner. Filled bookcases. Weapon storage alcove set into the south wall.

Hallway off living area: Fucking. Fantastic. Led to a bedroom with the largest mattress she’d ever seen in her _life_. Walk in closet. Full bathroom, extravagant tub, linen closet, beautiful shower with handy recessed shelves stocked with all sorts of fragranced bath products.

T’Challa had really outdone himself. She felt very guilty for using the widow bites on him.

Natasha eventually meandered back into the living area. After one final grounding breath, she kicked off her boots into the corner of the hall and dug her toes into the carpet. The flight had been long as hell, her phone told her she’d walked nearly thirty-thousand steps and the plush feeling on her tired soles was incredible.

She glanced around. The things Steve and Sam had left for her were stacked neatly atop one another on the kitchen island. Each was wrapped messily in a plain cardboard gift box. There were neither stickers nor tags. Next to the stack was a large wicker basket, soused up with shiny golden ribbon and wrapped in red-tinted cellophane. It seemed to be filled with all sorts of beauty products; sugar scrubs and bath bombs to face masks to organic moisturizers and several pieces of high-end make up. Attached to the front of the basket, dangling from the ribbon, was a small metallic card. Natasha flipped it over to find a phone number printed in the top corner. It had a 212 area code. Below the numbers in familiar, curvy script, she read:

  _Natasha,_

_That’s my personal line – no assistants, no tapping, no Tony. If I can help, let me know. Stark Enterprise contacts are extensive, and he’s been too busy with damage control to notice anything amiss. Be safe. -P.P._

 

 _Well_ , she thought, _that was…surprising._ Not necessarily uncharacteristic, she supposed, but certainly surprising. She and Potts had never been particularly close - or _friendly_ for that matter. In fact, she could count the number of times they’d spoken face-to-face on one hand.

 She paused, ran her thumb over the gilded edge until her skin broke and a drop of red bubbled to the surface. Natasha licked the blood away absentmindedly as she pondered this surprise. Did Pepper consider her a friend? While she certainly appreciated the deviousness of going behind Tony’s back and the resourcefulness of getting such a gift to Wakanda, was Potts really that lonely in her hectic life to turn to someone like Natasha for…? _For what,_ she wondered, bitterly. _For friendship?_ She scoffed and slipped the card into her purse. The shower was desperately calling to her, she hated the unique airplane grunge feeling, but the packages from Steve and Sam still sat beckoning – those were just a tad more tempting.

 _Not by much though_ , she mused, thinking about the spacious marble shower.

And she had to admit that most tempting of all was the plain backpack that had slipped onto the stool behind as she moved Potts’s gift. _It must have been propped up and fallen._ She was unsettled by the sick flip her stomach gave as she gazed at it. She didn’t like the ominous note of familiarity that lodged in her gut - and she was downright disturbed by the subtle tremors that began when her fingers touched one of the zippers. 

Inside the first pocket were five notebooks, colors muted from age and use. They were cheap and bound by cardboard. Ninety cents at an off-brand office supply store, most likely. Two of the notebooks had chunks ripped from the front cover – the pages of another were warped by water damage. All five had neon bookmark tabs peaking from various pages. She noted several receipts that fluttered to the counter from between the pages as she pulled them out, one at a time. Her thumb, still faintly throbbing from Pepper’s card, fanned the textured wedge of pages. After several rotations, she pulled tight to catch the journal on the first page.

Her eyes scanned the first line, and then snapped immediately shut. She felt, suddenly, like she was swimming through something unpleasant and thick. She rode a wave of nausea, found her throat tight, and swallowed past an unpleasant lump of guilt in her throat. The latter emotion was so intense that she abruptly stuffed the journal back where she had found it. As she pulled her hand out, her index finger followed the cheap twisted spine.

She’d never had an issue with trespassing or spying or immoral tactics of intel gathering before. It would be beneficial to everyone if she read through them, collected evidence and examples and could conceptually model something of a plan she could share with the doctors.

And still, she couldn’t force her fingers to open the pages.

It felt like…It felt like –

 _“It felt like they cracked me open, just flipped right through my brain,”_ came the voice in her memory, clear as day.

There. That churning in her stomach again. Her nails threatened to crack against the pretty marble counter. She felt the nausea bubble up into a retch: once, twice, and she swayed where she stood.

_Empathy was weakness. Mercy was weakness. Attachment was weakness. Weakness was unacceptable. Weakness would kill her. Widows could not be weak._

_“вы не вдова, если ты слаб. и что вы, если вы не вдова?”_

Natasha closed her eyes, tried to will the images and voices away. Mentally, she extended desperate claws to find enough sense for silly breathing exercises. After a few beats of impatience, she reached willfully back into the bag with less shaky hands.

This time, she ignored the notebooks in favor of the rest of the backpack’s mess. The notebooks were too much; she knew she had to read them at some point, but it felt like rooting around in someone else’s brain, and God help her, she would not be like _them_ , no matter how insignificant the action.

The first thing her fingers closed around was…

 _Oh_ , Natasha bit back a laugh, _The type to pay in exact change, are we?_

In her palm was a little change purse. It clinked musically, clearly heavy with lei and euro cents. She set it carefully aside and reached in once again. This time: a handful of pens. Standard black and blue and red, then three or four individual bright neons gels, several highlighters, and a disposable Lamy fountain pen. A blue shock of ink wet her thumb as she set it aside next to the coin purse. Next, four mushy meal-replacement protein bars, a disposable ancient cellphone with a spare battery and tangled charge. There were candy and gum wrappers, several crumbled shopping lists, postcards from a few European cities, and a dark green Babeș-Bolyai University sweatshirt. It looked well worn. Tucked in the front pocket was a pair of outdated headphones, an old MP3 player with a cracked screen, and –

“What’s this,” Natasha intoned, amused beyond measure. “A souvenir from Amsterdam?”

She laughed outright as she lifted the small plastic bag closer for inspection. She doubted there was enough there to combat a super-soldier metabolism. Feeling equally curious and mischievous, Natasha pocketed the bag. Then she zipped each compartment back up and turned to her two gifts. Carefully, she piled them in her arms and then eyed the plush couch opposite the kitchen. The sitting area was modern, but cozy, and she found herself gracelessly sinking into the cushions of the loveseat pushed against one wall. From there, she could see down the hallway to balcony at the corner of the unit, past the bedroom door. The window and sliding doors were sweating from the jungle mist that rolled down the mountains surrounding the city. Natasha was quiet for a moment, enjoying the far-off urban sounds of Birnin Zana and the closer, more comforting cacophony of the lively jungle.

Embarrassingly, she fell asleep for a spell. She jerked awake, cursing the long flight and focused her attention to the boxes still in her lap. As she plucked at the corners and debated the best way to get into them, her nose caught a familiar scent. It had been weeks since the boys left the suite, butthere was a hint of Sam’s favored detergent and Steve’s horrible old man cologne that clung to the items in her lap. Natasha smiled a little dully, rubbing her fingertips over the packaging, and allowed herself just a moment of loneliness.

She recalled how, about two months after that whole mess in Washington, Sam had phoned her.

_Natasha dipped the nail polish brush back into the pot and carefully cradled her phone to her ear. “Wilson, how on Earth did you get this number?”_

_“Oh,” Sam intoned, amused and coy, “Cap gave it to me.”_

_“Rogers gave you, a civilian, the personal line of a former KGB assassin who values smokescreens and privacy more than all of collective human history’s wealth? Is loyalty meaningless in this century?”_

_“Loyalty! Hold the goddamn phone, Comaneci. One, I haven’t been a civilian for years now. One, footnote A, I am goddamn_ Falcon _. Don’t you forget it.” Natasha snorted into the phone. When he spoke up again he sounded near laughter as well, despite trying to maintain a stern tone. “Two, ain’t nobody- footnote goddamn B: ain’t nobody! - tellin’ the truth if they say they wouldn’t do something nuts for a cold couple million. You’d give up the scary spy façade for that kinda cash.”_

_“Comaneci’s Romanian, a cold-couple million is significantly less than human history’s wealth,” Natasha volleyed back, “and if you honestly believe I couldn’t wire myself that much in ten minutes, I think I might feel insulted. I’m dangerous while insulted.”_

_Sam laughed and then caught himself. “Waitwaitwait. You serious about the wiring? ‘Cuz there’s this sweet little villa in the Keys I’ve had my eye on…”_

_That had charmed a genuine giggle out of her. “What did you need, Sam?”_

_“Well, I was hoping-”_

_“Is this a booty call?”_

_Sam spluttered on the other end and then, after a pause, hit her with a weary sigh. “Is it part of the superhero rulebook to be a snarky bully?”_

_“Why else do you think we let you in?”_

_Sam sucked his teeth. “Oh, oh I see. Fine. I’ll take these two tickets to the_ very _swanky event I was gonna invite you to and go find someone who appreciates me…and my snark!”_

_Natasha flattened her palm over her grin. “Wait,” she deadpanned, devoid of any tone at all, “Wait, no. I didn’t mean it.”_

_“Too late. I’m taking the kids and the pool boy and leaving you.”_

_The rest was easy, friendly. She didn’t remember much else between their conversation, accepting his invitation. Up until the taxi pulled up to Lincoln Center Plaza, she blamed her selective memory. The mystery event remained a mystery even when they arrived, and she’d been impressed by that: he had managed to keep a secret from her, considering her nature. Sure, she had been tempted to look up the high culture events happening on the scheduled night, but just didn’t have the heart._

_He graciously offered her his arm, walked her up the steps, and she’d been so charmed and thrilled to be treated to something blessedly normal that she hadn’t glanced at the stage, the posters, or any of the pamphlets they were handed._

_And, well. That had been a mistake._

_One moment she was stepping into the theatre, ready to spend a night pretending to be ordinary, ready to enjoy herself with someone she was beginning to want to call a friend. She felt giddily human; real, blessedly_ regular _. Shewas gifted the briefest sense of childlike wonder and excitement as a series of plinking piano notes signaled the beginning of the show. The notes danced in her skull a moment, and she felt a sharp metallic taste on her tongue, and then…then…_

No _, she begged as the music registered._ Tchaikovsky _._

_It drowned her. Like waves, like blood, like tears: it pulled her under, set about a panic, and then wrapped her in icy silence._

_Instead of water surrounding her, it was raw, painful nostalgia. She really was drowning, then. She couldn’t draw a breath. There pressure on her chest, in her head, like fingers squeezing her insides, and Oh God the pounding, the pain, her head was throbbing –_

_Natasha came back to herself pitched nearly double, crinkling the pretty satin of her dress. Her chest heaved, her head was split down the middle, her ears rang. It was so loud. So loud. No one was talking but the_ noise _was awful. She saw the little brunette wailing as Natasha snapped Safia’s neck. She saw Yelena’s tears, looked down and rubbed blood between her fingers. There was blood in her veins too, or oil. She felt so heavy._

 _Sam’s voice: “Shit, Natasha, what – Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. Here, here, this way, almost there. Sit down with me. You’re all right, girl, c’mon. Breathe. God, I’m an idiot! I should have known. I read the files, I just wasn’t_ thinking _. It was the dancing, right? Christ, I’m sorry, I fucked up.”_

 _Natasha heard herself as if through water. “I loved to dance. I still do. But…but I…I don’t remember learning how. I think they put that in my head. They put awful things in my head, but the dancing was_ good _, so they had to make that bad, somehow.” She looked up at him. “The music.”_

_His warm brown eyes were bright with tears that threatened to overspill. “Jesus, Nat. I’m sorry.”_

_She rose abruptly, marched into the bathroom across the hall, and emptied her stomach into the toilet. Time seemed to wind down as she was sick. After what felt like years there was a warm hand on her shoulder. It had probably only been moments._

_“Awww, baby girl. Is it okay if I touch your hair? Is that all right? I just want to hold it back.” Smart, caring Sam Wilson. He’d wanted to surprise her with a ballet troupe’s opening show. He cared and wanted make her happy. Because he was smart, caring Sam Wilson, and he just didn’t know. She wanted him to never know._

_“I’m going to die of embarrassment,” she croaked. Her stomach gave one last valiant effort to rid itself of nothing. “Christ, or maybe just die. That’s preferable at the moment.”_

_“Hush, it’s okay. I get it. This kinda stuff… it’s what I’m trained to deal with.” She nodded and got to her feet, let him lead her out of the stall. “Has this always been your reaction? It was the dancing, right?”_

_While the dancing probably wouldn’t have been enjoyable to sit through, Natasha shook her head. She wanted to prepare herself for a smooth lie, but the facing his worried expression, she found the truth bubbling up. “It was the music. It was…upsetting.”_

_“Upsetting? Nat, I’ve worked with combat vets. No shame in calling it what it is.”_

_She stared at him in the mirror for a spell, then ducked her palm under the faucet to down a handful of water. “The music is a trigger. Most Russian composers are. Especially Tchaikovsky.” Under her breath, so he couldn’t hear, she added, “Fuck you, Pyotr.”_

_He was silent a moment, waiting. His endlessly patient_ counselor mode _was clearly on._

_Natasha sighed and fisted the edge of the counter. He was waiting for an explanation, and she found that she wanted to keep talking. “They played it during training, sometimes.” Her nose scrunched. “Often. Every day. Or sometimes they’d have silence, but…but even then you could still hear it.” She paused. “They’d play it in sessions too.”_

_Sam’s brow was angry now. “Sessions?” Natasha gestured to her head vaguely. His breath whooshed out all at once, eyes blazing. “Jesus.”_

_She looked up from her white knuckles, blood drained from her tight grip on the counter. She gazed at herself in the mirror. Sometimes the concept of identity was tough to grasp. Sometimes it made looking at herself difficult. Not emotionally or physically, but it was as if she was peering through several layers of cellophane, trying to find something familiar. Something that was her. Searching for some semblance of identity in a reflection was getting harder as the years went by and that, she thought, was the worst part. There was never a clear image in the reflection. She knew logically, academically, that she had escaped. She survived. That much was obvious. She just wasn’t sure if it would ever really_ feel _like she had._

_Her reflection snorted in tandem with her. It certainly didn’t look like she had tasted freedom. She was pale from exertion, from stress, from being sick. Her eyes were tired and shot red as her hair. She didn’t remember crying, but she had to wipe away soft black trains that coasted down her cheeks. “I don’t know if I was actually a ballerina at some point. It feels like I might have. But then again-”_

_Twenty-eight Bolshoi ballerinas. Twenty-eight Black Widows._

_His expression pinched over her shoulder, dark eyes wide with concern. “Romanoff.” Fuck, she must have zoned out again._

_Natasha turned to him abruptly, arms crossed and decision made. “Listen. I lie. A lot.” Her eyes cast downwards. “The truth is malleable to me. It has to be. I have no doubt I’m going to disappoint you and even hurt you with that. And more. If we’re going to do this friendship thing -”_

_“Friendship thing.”_

_“Listen! I have to… I_ want _to be honest with you right now,” she barreled on. Her confidence waned. “A-And I’m going to do it with a few of the cheesiest sentences I’ll ever speak aloud.”_

_His eyebrows went up a little higher._

_“I don’t know what’s mine up here.” Her wrist flapped up and down gracelessly. “For the longest time I was some_ thing _, and then I was supposed to be some_ one _. They kept taking_ me _from me is the point. I’m still trying to figure myself out. I don’t want you to be disappointed if that person isn’t…isn’t good.”_

_He was smiling, just slightly.It looked as if he was holding back a bigger one. “You’ve got trauma, Romanoff. Don’t we all? Sure, yours is…” he shook his head, “Absolute hell on Earth. But that trauma creates determination, it creates strength.” Sam took her shoulders in his hands and spoke fiercely: “I see that in you. You’re human. We look for people who can help us and we look for people we can help.”_

_“I want to try and be friends,” Natasha blurted desperately. She felt stupid as she stuttered over the words. “I don’t know how, most of the time. I can be awful, I really can, but I-” She trailed off, braced herself, and then collected a deep breath. “You and Steve, the Avengers. You are good people. You make me work to be good. I want to try and be friends.”_

_Sam was looking at her with such a warm expression that it made her shift uncomfortably. “Come on, Natasha, let’s get out of here. We don’t have to go back in. It’s okay if you’re not ready for that.” Her lips parted to form a protest, but he raised his finger in front of her face and wagged it. “And it’s okay if you_ never _are.”_

 _He helped her clean up.She checked herself in the mirror and fixed some of the strands that had slipped from her neat updo. Then, she followed him back into the lobby. He offered her his arm once again. “Steve says you’re always talkin’ about that place in Hell’s Kitchen that makes those weird Russian dumpling things. Hell, he talks about those dumplings in_ bed. _I wanna see what all the fuss is about.”_

_“More information than I needed, Wilson. Also,” an odd, soft grin stretched her mouth. “They’re called пельме́ни.”_

_“Peel…Pil…”_

_“Pelmeni. Very good in soup.”_

_“If there’s some weird Russian shit in there, you get to eat them on your own.”_

_“Oh good, I do love win-win situations,” Natasha cooed. Then, she hooked her wrist through his offered arm and let herself be led away._

 

Wistfully, she decided to open the smaller, much more compact box from Sam first. She was both delighted and embarrassed to find that the idiot had left a little slip of paper taped to the top of the lid. There were coordinates, of which she assumed mapped the locations of several safe houses, should she need them. Alongside the list of numbers was Clint’s number - she knew that one by heart - and a reminder to get in touch with Clint in three week’s time so he, in turn, could put her in touch with the boys. They’d be low for those weeks and unable to communicate but then, he wrote, he wanted filled in on all the gossip.

She set the lid aside and plucked the bundle of tissue paper from the box. Wrapped inside, very carefully, was a neon green USB. Natasha grinned, reveling in the brief mystery. Could it be high-risk intel? Letters to read if something happened to them? A poorly crafted slideshow of tongue-in-cheek vacation photos? She wondered at the purpose until she turned the little stick over in her hand. Sam’s messy handwriting in silver sharpie marked the backside.

 _Tunez for Tash_ was all it read. She chuckled softly and set it back in the box for later.

Steve’s gift was set in a larger, but flatter, box. It squished slightly under her palm, like a clothes box. Inside, she found another brief, sweet note, tucked into the sleeve of what he’d left behind for her: a soft grey “World’s Best Grandpa” sweatshirt Sam had bought him for his birthday two years ago. Feeling excited, and silly for being excited, Natasha slipped her leather jacket from her shoulders. She shivered in the air-conditioned air for only a moment before she tugged the thick fabric over her tank top. So she hadn’t been hallucinating the familiar smell of both of them: Steve’s shitty old man cologne still clung to it.

She absolutely did not tuck her nose into the collar while she plucked through the rest of the gift. Underneath another layer of paper were two tablets: one in a glossy cherry-red finish and the other in a classy, basic matte grey. The note in her lap provided a little more information:

_One for you, one for Buck when he gets out. I remember being given one when I got thawed. SHIELD Psych thought it would help bring me up to speed. Maybe it’ll help Bucky like it helped me. Give him the third package too, would you? Didn’t get a chance before he went back under._

Christ, she could practically read the dramatic man-pain radiating off that last sentence. She set the tablets aside and picked up the last little bundle. She shook it, curious. There was metal inside that clinked gently, and something swept from deep within her chest to her throat.She knew, immediately, that it had to be a pair of dog tags. Her fist closed around the tissue paper greedily. She had a sudden idea to pocket the little box, forget the rest of this mess and run. The little token would be all she needed. She wouldn’t have to deal with any pain or nonsense, and she could go back to what she did best. Work alone.

 _You’re done running,_ a voice in her head chided. _You promised yourself you’d never run again._ An unbidden image flashed in her head: the team, Clint and Wanda and Sam and Steve and the rest, faces slack and sad with hurt over her disappearance, her betrayal, at the end of the superhero spat of the century. She ran when they most needed her, all because she’d been scared.

Natasha did not like the feeling of her throatthick with the promise of tears. God, she would need to get it together, and fast.

It took her nearly five minutes to shake herself and another thirty to organize her packages in the adjoining guest bedroom for storage. Feeling unsettled, tired, and alone, she unpacked just enough to fish her laptop out of the messenger bag she’d brought along. She connected to the internet (lightning fast), disguised herself through her favorite proxies (varied and routed through 32 countries) and booted up her favorite video chat app.

Wanda Maximoff’s icon was a picture of a cat wearing a black witch hat. She didn’t realize she’d clicked on the call button, likely on autopilot, until the girl answered.

“ _Prietena mea_! I am glad to see you made it to safety. Oh and you have changed your hair again! It looks lovely.” Wanda leaned towards the camera, seemingly unaware of how close to it she already was.

Natasha couldn’t help but flash a tired smile at the inquisitive tilt of the younger girl’s head and absentmindedly running a hand through her chin length, curly mass of hair. “Hello. It looks awful and frizzy right now, Maximoff, but thanks for lying to me. I didn’t feel like coming to a tropical climate with that thick mess.” She would never tell anyone the full, vulnerable truth. When her hair was below her shoulders, it made her nervous and edgy. It made her think of hands tearing, yanking, hurting. And with long hair, she found it frighteningly easy to slip into the emotionless, blank Red Room mask.

Wanda grimaced sympathetically and tugged at a lock of her own heavy curls. “Ugh, I imagine! How are you, despite the wet? You are having nightmares again, yes?” She flashed Natasha a _look_. “Do not lie. I can tell.”

“I’m fine.” Natasha snapped harshly. Exhaustion suddenly trumped her manners.

The hurt flashed for just a moment over Wanda’s face. Natasha saw her abandon the attempt, and it stung. She pursed her lips and plucked at the Star of David pendant around her neck.“There is no weakness in the truth,” she muttered.

Disagreeing, Natasha simply shrugged. A long moment of silence followed while Wanda sipped at a cup of tea.

Feeling suddenly guilty to disturb her at such a calm moment, Natasha cleared her throat. “I promise I’m not calling just to use you like this, but can you sense anything? Can you tell if they’re safe?”

Wanda’s expression softened minutely. She shook her head. “No, I need to practice that. The distance is a…what is the word? A strain.” She inclined her chin thoughtfully. “Last I saw them, they were fine. Nervous and sad, truly, but fine.” Natasha sighed in relief. “And Clint was here the other day. Before they went.” Wanda’s graceful hands continue to fidget and Natasha knew it was bothering her that she couldn’t reach out and soothe any of the team. “They will all be okay.”

The sentiment, stern and sure, was clearly as much for her sake as it was for Natasha’s. She watched as Wanda curled her fingers tighter around her coffee cup. She peered down into the dark liquid and took a deep, collecting breath.

Natasha cleared her throat awkwardly. “So that means you couldn’t…uh - sense anything here?”

“What, you mean –” Her face went sweet with empathy. “Oh, _prietena mea_. No, I am sorry. You know I cannot. It is much too far away.”

Natasha nodded, feeling ridiculous over the disappointment she felt at the younger girl’s answer. She was desperate for any intel at this point. She wanted to be prepared and she very much _wasn’t_ \- emotionally or otherwise.

“I do not think I could even if I wanted to. Once he found out what I am capable of, he asked me not to use my powers on him.” Wanda waved her hand at her temple in response to Natasha’s puzzled expression. “And I must be honest,” the witch continued sullenly, “even if I were closer I do not know if there would be…well. Much of anything.”

Natasha’s stomach churned.

“That I could see, I mean. It does not necessarily mean extensive trauma. It could be that I simply have not encountered anyone so good at shielding themselves.” Wanda said hurriedly, reading her friend’s distress. She dropped her chin into her palm. “I tried, you know. In Germany, when we were on the run. It was such a mess, everyone was a mess. There was much noise, but over it all, this distinct _pain_ and…and _holes._ ” She lifted a graceful brown hand and gestured to her temple. “There was nothing but that. It was a feeling that…that someone had overturned dozens of puzzles and mixed them together, purposefully lost pieces, bent others so they could not fit back in place. It was dizzying. I knew it was him and not the others.”

Wanda stopped abruptly, glanced back up from her cup to the camera. She regarded Natasha for a long moment. Her eyes went hazy and far off, like she was rooting through her own memories. “I heard and saw something similar when I first saw into you. I did not know pain so awful until that. It hurt me to witness that evil, even as distantly as I did. And still, even experiencing it through your minds, I cannot fully understand what -”

“Please,” Natasha’s voice cracked. She could remember that, the brief feeling of someone rooting around in her head, the blackness and then the memories. God, she felt ill. Her face must have been white as a sheet; Wanda made a distressed whine and her violet-painted lips pressed together apologetically.

“Oh! I am so, so sorry. I was not thinking, Natasha.” She ran a nervous hand through her thick, curly hair. “ _Pula mea,_ what a mess.”

The curse was so out of character, Natasha could not help but laugh despite the heavy atmosphere. Even still, the noise sounded brittle. She tucked her hand under her chin and did her best to muster up a serene, curious expression so Wanda wouldn’t wind into a nervous frenzy. “And how are you doing? The Raft, I mean. Steve told me what happened.”

“Not well,” Wanda admitted after a pause. She leaned out of frame and came back with a small cookie in her hand. It disappeared into her mouth in record time. She seemed to have practiced indifference to any mention of her trauma - it was so familiar that it made Natasha’s throat tight with guilt. Wanda had learned to do that somewhere; Natasha hoped it wasn’t from her. “Are we all fortunate enough to see how low humanity might sink, or is that just a lucky few?” Natasha’s expression must have shifted into something angry and ugly then, because Wanda studied her for a moment and then commented: “You are very loyal, you know. Protective.”

“I lied.” Natasha blurted. “I lied to you. Steve didn’t just tell me. I hacked into the security feeds about a month after I left. I saw videos of the prison break. I saw you in that cell. They put you in a straight jacket, Wanda, I watched what you went through, I –” She stopped abruptly, swiveled in the bar chair to hide her face as she schooled it, willed the tears away. She had watched every second of those recordings. When she turned back around, she made sure her voice was even. “I’m sorry. I should have been there.”

Wanda snort startled her, but it wasn’t an unkind noise. She shook her head, frizzy dark curls bouncing against her tawny cheekbones.“How did I know you would go sacrificial on me?”

“…Sacrificial?”

Wanda thought a moment. “No, not the right word. Saint? Martyr.”

Natasha prickled and sat up a little straighter. “Martyr is probably what you meant. I’m about as far from a martyr as you’re ever going to get, Maximoff. And don’t shrug off this conversation -”

Being interrupted by the girl’s airy chuckle was _beyond_ aggravating. “Oh, I must be thinking of the _other_ Avenger who leaked all her unclean laundry online. The one who gave up her privilege to transparency and privacy - two things the values most for her freedom - in a process to expose Hydra and its evil grip on the world. The Avenger who -”

“ _Dirty laundr_ y _!_ Also, that was for the sake of billions of lives _._ ”

Wanda wrinkled her nose. “You sound like my mother. Anyway - the Avenger who tore herself apart during a conflict between friends –”

“Tony’s not a friend, he’s an asshole.”

“- and in the end, became a traitor to the world, sacrificed her livelihood and freedom to help her friends, all so they would not have to give up theirs.”

“That’s not – I -”

“You electrocuted the leader of, arguably, the most powerful and advanced nation on Earth.”

“It wasn’t _electrocution,_ I –”

Wanda looked beyond amused. She laced her tawny hands together under her chin and laughed softly.

“You’re loyal and compassionate, Natasha Romanoff, face the tunes.”

“Music.” Natasha mumbled, hiding in her hands. “Face the music.”

“Idioms are stupid.” Wanda waved her hand. “Don’t worry about me, is what I try to say. You have willingly given yourself over to a mission that has the potential to be very traumatic and triggering, all to help your _prieteni_. I worried for you _._ An easy situation for you it is not. _”_

Natasha had to admit “not easy” was putting it lightly. Nevertheless, she schooled her expression into one of mild displeasure and lifted her shoulder in a disinterested shrug. “That’s not even the half of it. I have to admit, all this has been feeling a little deserved lately.”

The muffled thump of Wanda’s fist smacking onto the table nearly made Natasha jump. Nearly. “ _Nu spuna asta_ , Natasha. Do not!” The young witch was usually so calm and serene. Even her anger bordered on chilling intimidation, a unique quiet fury. But now her voice rose steadily _,_ as loud an assertion from her that Natasha had ever heard. Wanda also looked to be on the verge of tears. “I know a thing or two about harboring guilt and denial and self-hatred. I have done terrible things. I have _been_ terrible, whether I meant to or not. So have you, we both know this.”

Natasha’s fingers curled into a fist at her side.

Wanda shook her head. “Listen to my words. We are feared because of our pasts. You might not be able to find truth in this now, but you must understand: we are more than the sum of those mistakes. We can be better than that. We are stronger for it.”

They were not unfamiliar mantras, but the significance of who spoke the words was not lost on Natasha. “Wanda, my friend -”

“The people in that prison treated me like I was a monster.” Her voice wavered when she said it, and Natasha caught the first glimpse of the awful emotional stress the poor girl was clearly under. Wanda took a deep breath. “Do _you_ believe that I am? That I cannot atone? Do you believe that it is too late for me to do good?”

Natasha sighed, exasperated because she knew where this was heading. “Of course not. But -”

Wanda crossed her arms. “No buts! I will think the same for you until you can believe it for yourself. Please work on believing.. You deserve that kindness to yourself.” Her dark eyes softened. She pressed her fingertips to the screen, and then suddenly glanced left beyond the webcam. “I’m sorry, but I need to go now. Be safe and take care.”

Natasha nodded, and watched as Wanda reached forward to close her laptop.

“Wanda, wait.” It took her a long moment, but eventually Natasha could swallow past the lump in her throat. “cпасибо. You should be safe too.”

Wanda’s smile was warm and so, so kind. “ _Cu plăcere_. We will see each other soon.” She ended the call,the screen went black and Natasha was alone once again again.

 

The next morning, Majda’s stern knockingwoke her. Natasha groaned and rolled over to see that the clock on the nightstand read 7:35. When she answered the door in her hand-me-down sweatshirt with her hair a mess, the taller woman quirked an eyebrow. “Grandpa?”

“I’m jetlagged,” Natasha rasped. “Cut me some slack.”

“Yes, grandpa.” Majda retorted. “You have an appointment with the head neurologist on our team at eight. Did you forget?”

“Fuck,” Natasha spit by way of answering, and darted towards the bedroom. “Give me ten.”

She managed to look at least a _little_ professional in dark, tightly tailored pants and an emerald-green blouse, but still had to quickly drag her fingers through the tangles in her hair as she struggled to keep pace with Majda. She’d forgone make up except for a little brightener under her dark-rimmed eyes and some blush.

“So, this is a debriefing?” Natasha questioned, shifting her feet uncomfortably in the knee high boots she’d tugged on last moment. She struggled to keep up with Majda’s pace. They had gone down several floors in an opaque glass elevator, nearly jogged through a security check point and were now headed down a long metal-plated hallway towards a set of glossy white doors.Several biological warnings printed in bold Wakandan lettering were the only decoration in this wing of the palace.

Majda turned to catch Natasha in her dark, shrewd gaze. “Today you are not a spy, Agent Romanoff. Do not worry about intel for the time being.”

Natasha flashed her a saucy grin. “I’m always a spy.”

The ebony-skinned woman rolled her eyes. Natasha paused alongside her as they reached the doors, and watched as her slender palms pressed against a panel to the right of the entrance. The doors beeped a robotic Wakandan greeting at Majda before sliding open to reveal an array of glass walled cubicles. There were dozens of busy looking scientists milling about, passing papers and poking at high tech equipment. Majda led her through the midst of them towards another entrance at the end of what appeared to be the research chamber.

Majda leaned towards an intercom-looking device on the wall. “Doctor. Natasha Romanoff, the Avenger, is here to see you.” The warrior turned again to Natasha. “I will be back to collect you in two hours. There are to be resources delivered to your suite in the meantime, for food and other necessities.”

“Would it be courteous if I go to personally thank his Majesty later?”

Majda looked surprised and, if Natasha wasn’t just imagining it, a touch pleased at her inquiry of manners. “No, that won’t be necessary. He is busy, but will call for you if your presence is required.” Her gaze softened slightly. “I will mention it to him, though.”

“Thank you,” Natasha said, bowing slightly. Majda nodded and strolled away as the door opened.At the last second, she shot Natasha a threatening glare. “You show the doctor utmost respect, or I will destroy you.”

Natasha couldn’t tell if she was joking. She was still standing there awkwardly when the doors slid fully open. A throat cleared.

Across the threshold stood a short, curvy woman with skin darker than Majda’s. She had beautiful, coffee brown doe eyes - they were regarding Natasha as if she was a particularly slow child. “You… are Romanoff?” Her accent was heavy.

“Agent Natasha Romanoff, yes.” Natasha answered instinctively. She stuck out her hand, momentarily forgetting all her skill in amicable intercultural manners. “Natasha is fine.”

“I am Dr. Zaifa Siti. You may address me as Dr. Siti.”

Siti looked to be over the point of middle age, though the exact number was hard for even Natasha to assume. Her eyes were bright and intelligent, framed by delicate crow’s feet. That seemed to be the only clue to her years. A pair of magenta eyeglasses were perched on her nose. They matched the clip attaching a name badge to the pocket of her laboratory coat. The coat and her beige headwrap seemed to be the only plain things about the woman - she strode towards Natasha in a pair of _fantastic_ shiny black pumps.

Natasha inclined her head. “A pleasure to meet your acquaintance, doctor.”

The older woman’s lips quirked just a touch. “Enough with the niceties. I am a scientist, not a politician. You’re here to discuss your involvement in the project, I assume?”

“To be honest,” the irony of the phrase not lost on her, “it’s all been a little vague. Captain Rogers hinted at a favor - something like babysitting in his absence. But since arriving, I’ve been getting the impression there’s a little more to it.”

“Well, you did just introduce yourself to a leadingnationally recognized neuroscientist, so yes. The stakes have raised.” Siti gestured in invitation as she spun on her heel. Natasha followed her forward, leading towards a chamber with an array of monitors and medical equipment. All of the cords extended down a connecting hallway, and Natasha suddenly understood they were journeying to where they were keeping Barnes. She felt a twist of panic in her gut, remembering cold concrete, blank, constricting walls, remembering screams of pain and horror.

“As you might know, Sgt Barnes experienced…edits on a neurological level,” Siti explained.

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

They stopped outside a frosted glass double door. One of the doctor’s bright yellow nails tapped against the transparent tablet she had pulled out of seemingly nowhere. Multiple images of a brain appeared on the glass panes in front of them. They were just opaque enough that Natasha, even as no medical expert, could classify the snapshots as not belonging to a healthy brain. There was a startling amount of dark areas, as if the lights of a section of a major city had just gone out. She shifted her weight from heel to heel and resisted the urge to reach out and trace the bumps and lines in front of her. The click of nails on plastic drew more images forward, more detailed than the last. Each zoomed into specific areas of the brain. “They were not careful or skillful edits, either. It is almost primitive as a lobotomy.”

“Most of the changes began on a micro level - small ‘suggestions’,” Dr. Siti made a mournful noise in her throat. “Then began the desperation. These we call adjustments, for lack of a better term. When the subtle, minor edits did not stick as intended… they began playing blindly, hoping for results. It is likely that the failure of those latter attempts worsened the damage,” she paused, gestured blandly for a moment, and then sighed. “The word in English escapes me. When damage is done over time - like a stream cutting down the side of a mountain?”

“Erosion?”

Siti snapped her fingers. “Yes. I know it is a rather peaceful metaphor for the situation. My apologies.”

“It’s all right. These adjustments you’re talking about…this is what contributed to his conditioning?”

The doctor nodded. “The beginning of it, we are almost positive.” At Natasha’s raised eyebrow, she smiled a little sharply. “The rest was psychological and physical torture, to speak plainly. Perhaps physiological as well, with the aid of psychoactive drugs. We cannot know for sure until the log of control methods, the book, is in our possession. Civilized societies like Wakanda are not the leading experts in such torture.”

Natasha tried her best to remain expressionless. “Ouch. Well, you have a point. Department X, MKUltra, Hydra, the -” she swallowed, unsettled how near the point of breaking her voice was. To say she was unhappy with her current emotional fragility was an understatement. She had half a mind to ask the team here to fix her goddamn brain up too. “The Red Room.”

There was the familiar burn of watchful, accessing eyes on her temple and when she turned to look, the older woman shook her head sadly. “This cannot be an easy experience for you either. The files on you that leaked were passed around to our intelligence agencies, as well as practitioners and experts alike. You have extensive trauma of your own and being in the public light as you are cannot be easy. Neither can this discussion, or your task here. My clinical explanation is a touch indifferent, no?”

“No. And let me guess,” Natasha ignored the uncomfortable swell of nausea at so much of her being _seen_ so plainly. “Pictures of my brain are on the internet?”

The doctor looked puzzled by her light tone. “Yes. Although, if it’s any comfort, someone without the necessary training wouldn’t be able to pick up the neurological scarring.But here we have gathered perhaps the most impressive multidisciplinary team in human scientific history. To the average viewer or even doctor, the traces of conditioning and experimenting done with memory and triggers would not mean much, but to the team I have assembled, it is all fascinating -”

“Is that what we’re seeing with Sgt Barnes?” Natasha asked abruptly. “Neurological scarring?” Siti stared at her for a moment longer, and then blessedly allowed the shifting focus.

“Again, without the book we cannot know the extent of damage or the method. But, most probably, yes. Our scans - what you might liken to more advanced MRIs - show the implanted attributes have mostly been on the behavioral and mnemonic levels. Some psychological damage was a consequence of that, some must have been purposeful. The brain and nervous system are mighty, but fragile. Processes and instincts and emotions, anything you can name, Hydra’s _work_ scrambled more than mere synapses -”

Siti’s voice fades as the hair on the back of Natsha’s neck prickled.

_“Like putting my head through a spin cycle after every assignment. Making scrambled eggs of me.” A ghostly, disembodied grin. Humorless. Fading. “Goddamn. I feel lucky to be able to tie my shoes. Ain’t that fucked?”_

“-ent Romanoff? Agent Romanoff? Natasha? Natasha, can I continue? Are you well?”

Natasha shook her head and did her best to look sheepish. “Sorry. I’m fine. Had to process all those syllables. I’m only a spy, you know. Some of this stuff goes over my head.” The lie was smooth, her tone light. Siti aimed a shrewd, doubtful once over at her, but continued again.

“If we can help at all, even if we can’t repair _all_ the damage or erase _all_ the pain - although I believe that we can - this could mark a serious breakthrough. We’ve had the kind of technology and superb psychological counseling and care for centuries, but never have a case such as this.” Siti glanced down the hall, and Natasha found her gaze following as well. “A lot of good might come of this project, beginning with your friend.”

“He’s –” _He’s not my friend._ She snapped her mouth shut. “He’s certainly a good candidate.”

Siti nodded in agreement. There was a moment of quiet between them with only the various noises and beeps from the machines and the thoughtful, staccato ping of Siti’s nail against her tablet. “After psychological improvements have been made, we can enter discussion about prosthetics.”

 _Prosthetics._ Natasha’s lips pursed. She’d almost forgotten what Stark had done. _This mission is going to take a lot longer than originally planned._

“You have more to say, Agent Romanoff?” The doctor asked after a moment, and she could have screamed in frustration. She had spent all her life wondering if the true lie was her masks or her _face._ Whichever it was, nowadays it seemed like anyone could see through one to read the other. Christ, she really was going soft.

Natasha sighed wearily and rubbed her forehead. “Listen, doctor. All due respect, but I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me in some way, right?”

The temperature of the room seemed to drop thirty degrees. Natasha shuddered imperceptibly at the sudden tension. Siti’s eyes had narrowed by a minuscule amount, but her mouth was pressed into a firm, unhappy line. “Typical Western hubris. It’s not what we _need_ from you _._ You have nothing to offer us that we don’t already have. It’s what we want you to do.”

“I was under the impression that I was here on a favor to Captain Rogers, not on any orders.”

A single dark eyebrow lifted. “Captain Rogers was here thanks to the grace of the King.Do you truly think you’d be here as well if his request didn’t align with our interests?”

Natasha’s eyes flashed. “No, that would be foolish and completely uncharacteristic of Wakandan decision making. But it does sound an awful like you _need_ something from me.”

“We could just as well send you back and do this research on our own.” Siti snapped. “You are a guest here, not a political prisoner. Without your insight and personal experience into the original process, it would be a much more painful procedure. It would also take twice the amount of time. But we _would_ retrieve the handbook and we _would_ see results.” The small woman took a step closer. She was nearer to Natasha’s height than Majda, but despite that – and the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth – nothing detracted from her powerful, intimidating demeanor.

Natasha wasn’t aware her arms were crossed until her knuckles brushed against the cold tablet, still in front of the doctor’s chest. She took a grounding breath and dropped her hands, took a moment to calm herself. Enemies were not something she needed more of at the moment. “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough few days.”

Siti pacified at her words a little, though her eyes remained shrewd and careful. “I understand. Your apology is appreciated.” The tension drained out of the air, for the time being. Natasha returned her attention back to the imaging in order to avoid an awkward silence.

“So, what do you want me to do, exactly? Captain Rogers mentioned…” She paused, unsure pondering if the truth, Steve’s personal feelings, was a breach of trust. “Steve wants his friend to be comfortable,” she admitted, “and happy besides. He thinks someone with similar life experience will be able to help make the process easier. I’m just not sure how I’m meant to do that under current circumstances. Leave behind a couple self help books? Decorate his room? I don’t know why you’re telling me all the science behind this.”

Dr. Siti looked at her for a long moment, and then shook her head.“You know he requested to be put back under a cryogenic process, correct?”

“Yes,” Natasha replied slowly, stomach twisting. “I’m aware.”

“Until he was fixed, he said, he wanted to stay that way.” The doctor tapped at her screen, let that sink in. “But there are certain tests and diagnostics we cannot run without his consent or consciousness readily available. And the rest of the process, well. It requires the participant -”

Natasha’s blood ran cold.

“You…you’re planning on bringing him out for this? N-now?”

Dr. Siti shrugged. “We need to. He won’t be happy about it, but I’m sure with the proper support,” she gave Natasha a pointed look, “he will see the wisdom in having him participate in his own recovery.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone else on the planet in a worse state of mind to be a psychiatrist,” Natasha joked, feeling weak, but followed the neurologist down the corridor towards the in-patient suites regardless of the panic bubbling in her chest.

“Well,” Dr. Siti threw over her shoulder with an airy chuckle, “There is one person.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, everyone! The fall semester started and promptly kicked me in the teeth, along with some personal issues. Hopefully this monster of a chapter makes up for it?
> 
> title: from james blake's [retrograde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XClvMMxBg1k)  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey uhhhhhhhhhh you know how back in 2016 I said "new chapter next week"? Yeah, my bad. I should be more active now, so if you're still along for this ride: thanks. Part of the delay had to do with my personal life, part ha to do with the fact that Black Panther was coming out in 2018 and I wanted to be accurate and respectful to the film.

“And I, love, am a pathological liar.”

                                                     -Sylvia Plath, from _The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 2000_

 

* * *

 

Natasha sat on a stool, observing the chaos around her with her arms tightly crossed. All of her focus was going towards keeping her face carefully, obtusely, _absolutely_ blank. It was hard, considering the wild, loud energy that surrounded her. The room was packed tight and deafeningly loud with the cacophony of dozens of separate conversations. About twenty scientists, medical students, and several research teams had begun to trickle in about an hour after Natasha’s arrival.

At the center of the mob, swimming among the white lab coats, was the good doctor. Siti stood just about a meter away from the cryotank, humoring a group of starstruck interns and their endless questions. Natasha figured they were all relatively professional and impressive academics, and yet they spoke out of turn with the childish excitement and wonder that came with meeting one’s idol. They spoke at once, their young excited voices rising above the hollow din that she was doing her best to filter out. She had given up rather quickly on the idea of eavesdropping for intel, as her knowledge of Wakandan was as low as anyone else not a native to the country.

 _This is how everyone else must feel when I don’t speak English,_ she mused, mouth set in a grimy amused curve. Served her right for presuming she would be so much as an afterthought past the controversy of her arrival.

As she watched the throng of people, a few of the scientists suddenly broke free of their tightly-knit circle and moved to join Siti at an array of monitors. The blue glow from the expensive and complex-looking equipment on that side of the room bathed all of them in a ghostly technologic tint.

Scientists passed Natasha’s perch without a sparing glance, clearly focused on their work. She was never so thankful to be _invisible_ , and it quieted the lump of anxiety picking in the back of her head by a tiny amount. Right now, she wasn’t important. The red curls she’d tamed into a messy ponytail and her unusual complexion attracted a few passing glances, but other than that she was still a ghost. _An assassin’s dream_ , she thought, and focused on morphing the comfort that came with her unimportance into the fortitude she’d been missing the past few days.

Siti and another scientist- whom, judging from the authoritative carry of his voice, Natasha presumed was the doctor’s righthand - began giving instructions to rotating triads of scientists. Three would step forward and receive a few short sentences, nod, and then move aside so the next three to step forward, a well-oiled assembly. The interns and medical students followed, floating quickly in and out of the room, performing various mundane tasks or retrieving data. A few had returned with a stack of thin digital charts, the screens of which Natasha snuck a peek at - they were set up to connect to Barnes’s vitals. The charts were passed around to Siti and her assistant, and a stoic young man wearing a pair of fashionably thick-rimmed lime glasses.

The implications of the situation and the briskly working throng of academics hit her suddenly.

Now, she was quite frankly terrified. The crowd didn’t worry her now. It was the ambush.

She had never really been one for surprises - unless, of course,unless she was the one doing the sneaking. Siti’s surprise, specifically, was what left her on edge. Originally, Steve’s plea that she simply arrive to keep the situation diplomatic, had only worried her. She figured she could have complied and just observed Barnes’s recovery from afar, making recommendations to the team or something similarily…disconnected. She craved disconnected; it made everything so easy for her. But it was different, now. She would be held partially responsible for the future mental health of this man, of this prisoner of war, of… Well, it all left her particularly apprehensive.

Dr. Siti had called in her team. The team was going to begin the process of waking up Barnes. There was no doubt about that, now.

In retrospect, it had been silly of her to even try and harden herself for the moment when it came. In the back of her mind, she knew it could be a possibility - she always prepared for the worst. But this…Nothing could possibly prepared her. She had wrongfully assumed it would be easy, considering all the time that had passed, the progress she’d made…

Suddenly, she found it unbearable to be in the same room as that monstrous metal chamber. It loomed, hulking and foreboding with the threat of so many memories that she would have to face all at once. She felt ill and small and scared in a way that was becoming viciously routine - and she _really_ didn’t enjoy the fact that those feelings were breeding familiarity in her. Her stomach was twisted and turned in harsh knots as if at any moment it could become some monster that might claw its way up her throat. Worse, the pounding ache had worked itself into her head again. It always came around, an agonizing sharpness somewhere in the middle of her head. When she got to thinking about unpleasant things, or the empty spaces where she couldn’t _find_ anything, it got worse.

The longer she gazed at the cold vibranium shell surrounding the chamber, the more that ache spread. It sank into her chest, settled in her ribcage, tightened like a noose until she struggled to draw air. Then it wormed back up. It pushed at her jaw with a strange, sickening pressure that made her grind her teeth in panic. The repetitive noise was loud enough to drain away the drone of multiple conversations in the room. For that, at least, she was grateful.

And then, all at once, Natasha was yanked out of her head by a shadow falling across her vision. Her muscles loosened instinctually, and as her fists relaxed she realized she’d been digging her nails into her palms hard enough to wound.

Siti stood before her, speaking to her… but the old woman’s voice was lost. It was if they were trying to hold a quiet conversation on a beach with wild tides; waves crashing, wind howling, seagulls screaming.

_Was that it gulls screaming, or was it her?_

The roaring in her ears began to hurt. Still she gazed at the metal tank, as if entranced, unable to break away.

 _Dear idiot_ , was all Natasha could think. _Paying for my mistakes._

From the recesses of her brain, something not lost in her spiral reached out.Some piece of her mind was distantly aware that she needed to pay attention. Her thoughts turned to that silly, familiar breathing exercise.

 _In for four, out for five. In for five, out for six. In for six, out for seven._ Her heart twisted when she realized who, exactly, she had learned that technique from and she felt her panic tip forward into a budding wave of nausea.

A hand settled on her elbow. Natasha turned her face, hopefully betraying nothing about the storm within.

“Just checking that you are well. I understand it can be unsettling to see, but I wish to assure you that it is entirely safe,” Siti said, voice softer than Natasha assumed she could make it. Her expression was tight with suspicion and something that, if Natasha was someone different, could be worry. Maybe her face wasn’t as blank as she thought.

Siti’s attention was pulled away by a series of beeps that begun to fill the room. There was a lab rat tapping away at a panel to the left of the cryochamber, two colleagues flanked on either side of him. Natasha turned to watch as Siti observed with the curious supervision of a more experienced mentor. The two scientists spoke quietly to one another, and then -

And then, to Natasha’s horror, the outer fastenings on the chamber’s cocoon-like doors disengaged. The wings began to extend outwards and away. Like the exoskeleton of some awful metal insect.

Something in her began to scream. She tried to push it down, down, _down_.

“This is a science we’ve long since perfected. It is no more painful than falling asleep.” Siti assured.

Natasha wondered how Steve had coped with this. She knew he’d been present for the process itself, and wondered if he had screamed or cried. She wondered if she was capable of either anymore, outside her head.

Her eyes slipped close as she concentrated on trying to banish the unbidden images that came to her. Long hallways, dim lighting, hospital floors and medical supplies. Ballet, gunshots, metallic, robotic noises that sounded like screaming, screaming that sounded like machines, machines that sounded human as the noise built - _Christ_.

She knew, as a sick deja vu fell over her, that there would be no relief from the nightmares that night. _Days without psychological incident,_ she thought bitterly, humorlessly, _right back to 0._

The wings opened, there was a slight drop in the temperature of the room, and then she could see him. Natasha was glad to be sitting as she felt the strength leave her legs.

The most disturbing part was that he almost looked…peaceful. Natasha had seen her fair share of corpses, and while many of them had been mangled by her hands, some _had_ been natural deaths. They sometimes looked asleep. Siti was right, then. It did look relatively painless, at least compared to the other devices Barnes must have been subjected to. Still, there were some clues. Natasha could see that he was missing the softness that came about his face. Whatever gases and fluids were contained within the pod tinged his normally chestnut hair an odd blue-green when it caught the light. The same material gave his skin an unhealthy looking sheen, paling his tawny complexion and making it look paper-thin - even as far away as she was, she could see a maze of veins. His eyelashes were stuck to his cheek with a faint coating of frost. The illusion of sleep was further broken by various wires and tubes that connected him to the pod, and the pod to the equipment in the room. Although the technology - and the team - were both advanced and respectful in ways that Hydra had refused to implement, there was still something darkly sinister to seeing him like this. Strapped and bound and immobile in a glorified, mummification mason jar. An animal on display.

A cheery robotic voice, distinct from the one connected to her quarters, chirped something in Wakandan, breaking Natasha from her thoughts. Several of the scientists around them cheered and he fought not to be startled. Siti translated the announcement for her. The thermal sequence had begun without detecting any ‘vital complications’. She assumed that meant he could be crammed in the microwave and set on defrost without it stopping his heart, or worse. A flume of steam or vapor released from a vent on the side of the chamber. Now, she jumped a little.

She cleared her throat, eyes darting around the room. “So…are its happening now?”

Siti looked a touch taken aback and then laughed, at Natasha’s ignorance or at her own _surprise_ at Natasha’s ignorance. “Oh, no. The process will take some time. Trying to complete it all at once would be…incompatible with life.”

Natasha’s mouth twisted. “Incompatible with life.”

Siti waved her hand. “Sensitive medical language. It sounds morbid, but the term we use is reanimation. There is no true death that occurs, obviously, and the process itself is more complicated than I have time to explain.” She smiled apologetically. “Or _you_ have time to grasp. In normal patients, the period for natural waking to occur is anywhere from one week to up to two months after we terminate the preservation functions of the chamber. The body must kick start - slowly and with our assistance - back into independent functioning.” She turned to glance at Barnes. “Although we must take the individual into consideration. In the case of our friend here and his metabolism, I would estimate the process to take, at maximum, seventy-two hours.”

 _Oh_ , Natasha thought. _Wonderful._

 

Despite her discomfort and remaining panic, she stuck around for several hours longer. Just until the lab rats had cleared out. At sunset, the only people that remained in the room were herself and the young man with glasses. She assumed he was a medical student, judging from his hurried writing on a tablet, curious eyes, and the dark circles that hung below.

Eventually the assistant tilted his head to signal his departure and exited. No sooner than Natasha’s shoulders relaxed at the quiet hiss of the doors closing did they open again. She turned her head and watched in surprise as Majda strode confidently into the room. Briefly, Natasha ruminated on the thought it was absolutely _unfair_ that the warrior look so vibrant and regal, with her rich skin and a flattering loose blouse, even under the unforgivingly harsh lights. In comparison, they made Natasha look sickly.

The Dora Milaje warrior moved to stand next to her. She mirrored Natasha’s posture (hip cocked to one side, arms crossed tightly over her chest) as they both studied the massive tank at the apex of the room.

The two of them, to Natasha’s surprise, had built something of a rapport in the week since she arrived. She wouldn’t call them friends, much less acquaintances for that matter. Majda hadn’t really softened at all, really. She was still sharp, brutal in her honesty and opinions…but there was a taunting, dry level to her harsh words and vocal disdain for Natasha’s Western ignorance. It wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t hatred, and Natasha knew she had bad taste.

“You know,” the woman said, lowering her voice until it was almost conspiratorial, “he is not _ugly_. For a white boy.”

 _Very bad taste!_ Natasha was not sure how she was meant to react, but the comment startled a sharp, amused snort out of her. It was very clearly a joke, but the taller woman’s keen, dark eyes were on her - as if trying to ascertain something. A shiver fought its way up her spine. She didn’t like the feeling of being studied. Natasha turned a little to meet Majda’s gaze. “What?”

There was a moment of silence in which she her keen eyes darted between Natasha and the tank. “How do you know him?” She held up a slim finger as Natasha opened her mouth. “And speak truly. I will know if you choose to lie.”

Natasha considered this. She had her suspicions of Majda’s role in the ranks of Wakanda’s warrior elite: she was charming and open to speaking to an outsider, whereas all the other women Natasha had encountered were stern, quiet, and too committed to their duties to give her a second though. Okoye, the leader of the Dora Milaje, and Ayo, the agent who had confronted her in Germany, had been cold, condescending, and harsh during Natasha’s security briefing. Majda had been ordered to meet Natasha when she arrived, had spent the last few days around her…Natasha would not be surprised if the woman was an information operative and part of a covert team. Now she had no reason to believe her lies could remain unnoticed - Majda was capable and intelligent, and it would do no good for Natasha to be overconfident. Here in Wakanda, among the elite group of female warriors, she was not unique in her skill. She was an expert, of course, but if there was another who would catch her, it would be another spy. 

She weighed her options for a moment before making her decision. Willing herself to seem ashamed and embarrassed, she broke their stare to sneak a look at her shoes.

“They used him to train a few of the girls, back in the Red Room,” she shared, her voice quiet. Had she put the wobble there? She glanced back up at the chamber. “

Majda studied her. “Only a few of you?”

The simple answer: _yes, only a few of us._ But the other woman’s expressively warm brown eyes reminded her of Sam, and she found that she couldn’t stop her mouth from moving. “Yes. The weak ones were gone by that point.” When a twitch of the woman’s brow gave her puzzlement away, Natasha clarified, “Only those of us that were still alive were privileged enough to train with their most deadly asset.” 

She caught Majda’s look of abject, pitying horror through the reflection of the chamber, mirrored like an oil slick against the glass and the gleam of Barnes’s left arm. The expression looked genuine; then again, Natasha found that being genuine was not all that hard to fake.

“How old were you,” she watched Majda’s reflection whisper the question. “What happened to the others?”

Natasha fought back a bitter laugh. How old, indeed. How old had she been? How old was she now?

She took a moment to process this question. Small, personal details like that were the hardest to pin down. Trying to grasp at them was impossible, as discarnate as they could be. One day, she could remember snapping a politician’s neck as an elementary aged child. The next month, if a particular event would come to her again, she would recollect it as a teenager. Another, and she would see herself the same age, but in a warm living room practicing her feet positions while the smell of pastries wafted from the kitchen. Sometimes, she remember a soft maternal voice singing. Sometimes it was screaming. She might remember how a particular mission had marred a patch of skin, but it might not be there if she searched. If asked to guess her birth month, her luck was about even with guessing a complete stranger’s.

The question of her age was difficult, so Natasha answered the easier question first. 

“I killed many of them,” she said plainly. She knew, withouta doubt and without turning to check, that her even tone unsettled the other woman. “I killed _most_ of them. Several of the other girls might have killed others, but it didn’t matter in the end. I had the highest count. That’s why I’m here and they aren’t.”

Natasha glanced over her shoulder at the other woman. Her sudden movement must have startled Majda, because the expression written plainly on her face was one of pity… disgust. She schooled it back towards indifference in record time, impressing the Russian. She smiled haltingly and continued.

“Age, well. That’s a little more complicated. I’ve been told I was born towards the end of the 1920s.” She took a breath and tried to think of a way to explain without further disturbing her company, or revealing too much. “Going through my memory with the intent of finding something _particular_ from my past is…not an option most of the time. No human memory is perfect, but…It’s not exactly like flipping through a carefully organized, linear binder of events.” She glanced up at Majda. “Do you have hoarders in Wakanda?”

Madja’s brow furrowed at the sudden change of topic - or the phrase, Natasha wasn’t sure. “Hoarders? I am… not familiar with the Wakandan equivalent of that term, if we have it. It is like collecting?”

Natasha’s lips pulled into a humorless grin. “Sort of. You could call it extreme collecting. It’s a compulsive behavior, a symptom of any number of psychological disorders. People won’t - or can’t - throw out anything, so their homes can be very messy and disorganized.”

Majda snapped her fingers and said something Natasha’s couldn’t translate. “Yes, I know what you’re talking about.” The metaphor recognized, there was a subtle change in her expression, making her face softer. “So that is what it is like? Your memories, I mean.”

Natasha nodded curtly. “Yes. Like trying to find something in a mess. Sometimes, when you’re looking, you step on something sharp, or what you’re looking for isn’t there. Or it was never there at all.” The Dora Milaje looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but seemed to pick up on her discomfort. Natasha doubted she could speak more about her past with Barnes looming over the conversation like a vintage popsicle. The overwhelming emotional rollercoaster she’d had a front seat on that morning hadn’t quite left her steady on her metaphorical feet.

Aware that the woman might ask another probing question, she quickly took the silence as an opportunity to change the subject. She “There’s this reality TV back home, called Hoarders. You ever seen it? It’s pretty interesting.”

Majda’s expression soured in disdain. “You publicize the psychological suffering of people for entertainment?” She gestured towards the door to Barnes’ room and they exited. The muted thumps of Natasha’s boots followed the elegant _click-clack_ of the other woman’s heels as the two strolled out of the research bay. “That’s cruelly exploitative.”

Natasha laughed. “American media 101.”

Majda led her out of the labs and spoke as they walked. “We do not watch much Western programming. The culture of Wakanda is most important to us. There is little consumption of foreign media sources here. Well, is hard to come by but not _impossible_ to find. Especially if one is curious or involved in secondary education concentrations like -“ she paused, and her fingers tapped a rhythm on the dark leather encasing her long legs. “Oh, the phrase in English…media literacy? Communications?”

By now, they had reached a sort of lounge tucked into a comfortable alcove at the end of a hallway. Majda gestured before she arranged herself elegantly into a cushioned armchair with a half-moon backing. Natasha sat opposite her on a foot stool, feeling awkward and small. Fortunately, it was surprisingly comfortable. She pulled her tablet from her bag - Siti had helped her connect to a research and monitoring application most of the medical staff utilized. She opened it and gazed down at the screen from the camera in the lab, watching the steady rise and fall of Barnes’s chest. As far as she could tell, his vitals were normal. The steady beeps of the machine was oddly comforting.

“There’s this infamous Japanese film called Battle Royale,” Natasha said softly. Majda leaned closer. “These kids, they have to fight each other to the death. It was like that for us, for the girls. In the movie, the kids got supplies. Randomized backpacks of just…stuff. We had our hands and our training.”

Natasha recalled being woken one morning, earlier than usual, recalled being led into an empty observation room with another girl.

“Oksana was her name. We weren’t allowed to give each other nicknames, but then we were still stubborn little Russian girls.” Natasha smiled humorlessly. “We called her Shushka. She was one of the best. Clever, fast, deadly…but not as deadly or clever or fast as me. We were told that only one girl could leave the room. Oksana loved me like a sister and she hesitated.” She looked up at the Dora Milaje warrior sitting across from her. “I didn’t.”

There was a long, long silence before Majda spoke. “Romanoff. I am so sorry.”

Natasha blinked, shaken by the raw emotion in her voice.

“I am sorry. What they did to those girls, to you…it was barbaric.”

Pity was something she was used to, but this acknowledgment was…disconcerting. Wrong. Coupled with the early morning’s events, she spent the rest of that evening in a strange, dissociative haze. Of course, no one could tell with her mask firmly in place - not even Majda, when she invited Natasha to a cozy coffeehouse in one of the quieter parts of the lower city district. She remembered having a polite conversation before excusing herself back to the palace, but damn her if she couldn’t remember what it had been about.

The shut down hadn’t helped the thoughts from racing through her head. Having the tablet synced to Barnes’s status, with constant message updates from the scientists and Siti herself pouring in on the notifications, wasn’t exactly conductive to developing healthy coping mechanisms. She was frustrated on top of feeling absurdly brittle. She’d confronted the pain of the past, her history, and his connection to both several times over the past few years. Facing him down in Odessa had been the most difficult, and her sloppiness had compromised the mission. But this was an entirely new monster and she wasn’t exactly running into it with a clear, emotionally stable headspace.

Washington had been… significantly easier. The pain she dealt with neatly, packed it all up in a nicely wrapped boxed, and locked it in the cabinet with all the other pain. Cut and dry, no nonsense, no mess. The times after that, it’d been as simple as slipping the Black Widow persona on. Over time, she barely thought about it until could almost stop altogether. By the time Tony and Steve’s tiff had caused international panic, she didn’t think about it at all. It helped that he hadn’t recognized her while staring her down, while speaking to her, while nearly choking the life out of her. All of that was comforting. It made it easy. He knew of her, knew her name, but didn’t know _her_ anymore, and that made him just like everyone else. While Hydra had taken so much from her, while she might never know her true self completely, that gave her comfort. No one remained that knew Natalia Romanova and that was the way Natalia Romanova preferred it.

He would wake in the next two days. He wouldn’t know her. Those were the facts and she clung to them, as frustrating as the pain was.

 

She sat in that thoughtful emptiness for four days.

 _“Natasha Romanoff,”_ chimed the robotic voice in her ceiling. _“You have a message awaiting from Dr. Zaifa Siti. Do you accept?”_

The message recipient herself was prone upside-down, bent halfway with her feet over the top of the sofa and her head hanging off the edge of the seat. Natasha stretched and sat up, resting her chin on the back of the sofa. The AI sounded completely different from Jarvis, yet she thought of him anyway. “Sure, patch her through. What should I call you, by the way?”

There was a pause before the AI spoke again. “ _I find it most amusing that humans want to give names to everything. Nonetheless, I have no title. People are more at ease if I allow them to choose a name for me.”_

Natasha’s nose scrunched up. “I’ll have to think of a good one. Go ahead and put the good doctor on.”

_“Very well.”_

While she waited for Siti to connect, Natasha padded over to the kitchen and rifled through the fridge in search of something to make for breakfast. She decided on an omelet and also plucked some delicate-looking tropical fruit she’d never seen outside of Wakanda. Ingredients balanced in her arms, she spun to drop them on the island counter when a shrill _ping!_ suddenly sounded from the ceiling. Her apartment was all at once filled with the clamor of excited voices. Natasha paused halfway to the island.

“Good morning, doctor.”

“A good morning to you as well, Agent Romanoff. Has your jet lag improved?” Siti’s voice was chipper and sincere, but the way that she swiftly rattled through polite small talk was obvious - she had not called to chat. Something was on her mind.

“Yes, it has. I’ve been sleeping like a dream,” she lied.

“I am glad to hear it.” Someone asked her a question over the line, and she shot the answer back at them quickly. Natasha heard her take a few steps and the din of voices quieted substantially. “Agent Romanoff, I am pleased to inform you that the process has reached its conclusion.”

Her heart did something strange in her chest. “Barnes is awake?”

“Awake and well, if not perturbed. He was not happy about the circumstances and although he seemed dazed, his vitals are all normal. Well, normal for him.”

“Good. That’s…good.”

Siti hummed. “We thought it would be beneficial for him to speak to a familiar face, someone he knows, before we continue any tests.”

 _Someone he knows_ , she thought wearily _._ “Makes sense to me, doctor,” she said smoothly, keeping her voice even. “Do you have a specific time you want me to stop by? I assume you want him to speak to your team first.”

“Yes,” Siti confirmed, “he’s in an evaluation with one of our neuropsychologists as we speak. Until we can choose from a list of recommendations, he’ll be speaking to one of ours. You are welcome to drop in at any time today, although I doubt he will be done with Dr. Iyawa within the hour.”

 

In her dream, she walks alone.

As if out of fog, she finds herself searching slowly, slowly, _aimlessly_ until she finds the edge of a forest. The trees have died long ago and their brittle limbs stretch skywards towards the vast, dark void above. The sky…isn’t quite right. It’s almost not a sky at _all_ , more an oppressive dark blanket about to collapse. It’s clear, devoid of clouds, but a heavy snowfall drifts around her regardless. All at once the bitter cold hits her system - her lips and cheeks sting, her fingers curl into her sides searching for warmth. She trudges forward through what has already accumulated on the ground, drawing nearer to the wall of trees. A sick sense of dread follows her as she moves, but she doesn’t seem to be in control of her feet. The wind that stings her cheeks and lashes snow against her skin makes no noise. There is no crinkling of branches in the wind.

But there is a light, dim yet unmistakable, deep within the maze of trees. She feels desperately calls to It and picks up her pace. As she draws closer, further into the density of the treeline the light _reflects_ off of her, momentarily blinding; she looks down to take in the white parka and snow gear suddenly on her form. Before she can consider this change for too long, or the mysterious gleam further within, she feels the sting of something foreign slide into her abdomen. Pain blossoms and swells into her ribs, and it is so fierce that she hopes to die from it. She falls to her knees, bent at the waist, her forehead kissing the frozen ground. A mittened hand presses to her hip desperately, seeking the source of the pain.When she pulls it away, her palm is wet and slick.

 _Blood_ , she panics, but when she looks down at the snow the liquid that soaks it is not red.

It is an inky tar, blacker than the sky-not-sky. The knowledge that something so monstrous drips from her hurts more than the wound itself.

 _Humans bleed red_ , something within her crows.

She falls forward the last little distance and rolls at the last moment, landing with a breathless wheeze on her back. The stars - there are stars now, though they’re as wrong as the sky - twinkle down at her, barely visible through the netting of spindly, dead tree branches. Her side is sticky with whatever darkness seeps out of her. It pools under her thigh, her shoulder, and begins to mat her hair as it dries. She lets the pain wash over her until the throbbing ceases, until the snowflakes collecting on her lashes become too heavy. She closes her eyes.

No one searches for her. No one could find her in this place.

In her dream, she dies alone.

 

Natasha jolted upright, chest heaving and sweat clinging to every inch of her skin. Her hair was wild around her face from tossing and turning so heavily. She tried to comb her fingers through it and only managed to catch a tangle.

 _“_ Fuck!” she hissed at the sting to her scalp, already feeling a bad mood beginning to sour the edges of the day. “Fuck, I can’t _do_ this.”

She slunk back on the bed, pulled the sheets around her shoulders morosely. After a moment, she realized distantly that she was shaking, so rattled by the nightmare.

How long has she spent trying to scrub the stains away, only for them to remain? How was she ever going to help someone else when she was such an absolute _travesty_ herself?

The nightmare had her wondering, and not for the first time, if perhaps her stains were not stains at all. Maybe she was the stain. Maybe the darkness that oozed from her was the identity she had spent so much time searching and longing for. What if she _was_ the Black Widow, the Slavic Shadow…what if Natalia never existed at all? What if -

 _“You are good, too_. _Or trying very hard to be._ ”

_“You’re human.”_

No. She couldn’t let herself be swept further into that headspace. It was unhealthy, she knew that, but more important it would stand in the way of the had things that needed to be done. They would never get done if she fell into a pathetic hole of despair.

Besides, her demise or complete unraveling would be exactly what Department X would wanted for her in the end, after she had lost her usefulness.

Weakness would kill her. Widows could not be weak.

Natasha forced herself out of bed. She could do this. She wouldn’t disappoint any of her friends, she wouldn’t disappoint T’Challa, and she certainly would not leave James to deal with this alone.

She would not be weak.

 

An hour later she met Siti outside the entrance to the lab. The chamber where Barnes’s freezer-coffin had been just a few days ago was now occupied with other terminals and equipment. Among the people currently settled into the area, she could not pick out any familiar faces.

Siti reached out a welcoming hand that Natasha shook. “Good morning once again, agent. Don’t fret, we did not pull a disappearing act. We have set up Mr. Barnes in another room away from all the noise and bustle.”

“Morning to you too, doctor.” Natasha tilted her head. “I’m sure he appreciated that.”

Dr. Siti scoffed and flapped her hand. She lifted her chin to gesture her forward and began to turn away. “He has been quiet since awakening, but I’m inclined to agree.”

Natasha hesitated, chewing her lip as the doctor walked a few paces away towards an adjacent corridor. Her pep talk was beginning to wear off, and with what awaited her in that room…

“Doctor, I - just a moment.”

The older woman turned, a curious expression on her face. Natasha took a deep breath.

“I was thinking that maybe this whole thing might not be the best idea,” she said quickly. “Your team is well equipped, obviously, so I’m respectfully confused…I just don’t see where the use of my presence -“

Dr. Siti’s face was no longer benevolently puzzled, twisting as Natasha stumbled through her delivery. She looked furious now, her eyes ablaze and mouth set in a fierce, unhappy curve. She licked her lips a moment before raising a dark bony finger between them.

“Listen to me very carefully, you _stupid_ girl,” Siti snapped with sudden vitriol. “I have explained it to you once, nicely, but I will not be so kind this time, and I will _not_ repeat myself after. You were brought here for a reason and I will not see you throwing the respect of the choices of the king with such…such… disregard!”

Natasha’s eyes were wide. “I didn’t mean any disrespect, doctor.”

Her finger between them waggled and then dropped as Siti crossed her arms angrily. “Whether it was your intention or not, you don’t seem to realize the lengths that were taken to bring you here. Not only _you_ , but your compatriots. The king owed your captain a favor, this is true. But this is not a vacation for you or some opportunity for exploration. Wakanda has remained hidden and closed to the outside world since its creation. Centuries of progress and safety were tossed aside so that your fellow could remain for the care he needed. At the request of your captain, you were brought in order to help that care along.”

The old woman settled just a little, regarded Natasha with a keen but still furious glare, and shook her head. “Your records are public knowledge now, Natasha Romanoff. Your secrets are secrets on longer: everyone knows of your past and your crimes. Anyone with at least an inkling of deduction might realize that you would want to atone, and this is how you will do it. You will toss your pathetic angst out the window, stifle your Western privilege to make such requests, and _do the job you were brought here for_. You will _not_ disrespect Wakanda or her king and expect to get only a soft reprimand.”

To say that she was stunned by the doctor’s speech would be an understatement. Natasha stood with her eyes widened and hackles raised, a sense of shame creeping up the back of her neck. Siti was right, as frustrating as it was, as terrifying as it was. She owed Barnes this, at the very least; but she also owed T’Challa and the power of such an ancient nation at the authority to be standing where she was.

Still, she could say nothing, only stood in front of Siti and hoped her contrite expression might serve as a response - hell, she wasn’t even sure if she should offer one.

It seemed good enough for Siti: the old woman simply nodded her head once with finality and dropped her arms. She turned on her heel and spared Natasha only a brief glance over her lab coat clad shoulder before continuing on their path down the hallway. “Be aware, Miss Romanoff, that your ignorance will not be as warmly received. Not every Wakandan will be so patient.”

Natasha nodded, although she knew the doctor could not see it.

 

It was quite a walk towards wherever they were keeping Barnes. As she trailed behind Siti, each lab or work area they passed seemed to continue _forever_ in monotonous stretches that had begun to draw her anxiety tighter and tighter. The sun made her shadow on the opposite wall dance lazily and soon they had come to a row of observation rooms, some fashioned with cots or end tables and sparsely decorated. Rather than its warmth be comforting, Natasha felt overheated and nervous. There were plenty of scientists milling around an equally advanced-looking set up, similar to the one in the previous wing. Barnes himself was nowhere to be seen in any of the rooms, and his absence made something behind Natasha’s eyes throb a familiar ache. Her memories, as jumbled as they were, made her question everything. She had to feel grounded and real in case her experiences weren’t. Once, she told Steve that the truth meant very little to her. That had been as true as the definition of the word could be, ironically. Even so, she had found comfort in the fact that Steve _assumed_ it was because she was a spy, because of her career. In reality, she questioned the truth of everything. She had to, for her own sanity - whatever little pieces must be left of it.

Having been told that Barnes _was_ in the facility, Steve and Sam and T’Challa and even the Wakandans she’d met so far…She wondered sometimes if her life outside of the Red Room had all been one long implanted memory. If she hadn’t escaped at all, and this was all an elaborate and cruel punishment for some wrong. Her desire to help Barnes - what if it had manifested in some terrible hallucination? What if-

“Here we are,” Siti announced, yanking Natasha quite abruptly from her cycling thoughts. They strode towards an open corridor, above which _NeuroPsych Department_ scrolled in cold blue letters on a thin sheet of digital display glass.

“It…the signs are in English.” Natasha said dumbly. From the corner of her eye, she could see Siti give her an incredulous look.

“You are a spy, and you just now noticed this?” the woman laughed. “Yes, unfortunately the scientific community outside of Wakanda operates under unified English to make communication easier, and so we must adapt as well. Here, turn right.” Natasha did as commanded. The space before them reminded her of a hospital’s ER examination area, with counters resembling nurse stations in the center. Instead of multiple patient rooms set along the interior, the north, south, and western walls were lined with about a half-dozen scientists, their medical stations, and similar machinery to the first lab she had visited.

Along the eastern wall, a huge sheet dark reflective glass stretched from floor to ceiling. There was a seam about mid-way - a door. Next to it was a panel not unlike the one that Siti had begun the cyropod’s dethaw process on. Natasha followed her to it, and watched as the doctor tapped a few things onto the foreign Wakandan keyboard. The glass in front of them illuminated briefly, and then the opaque darkness dripped away like ink down a microscope’s slide. It disappeared, Natasha assumed, into some mechanism within the glass wall, and what was left was a clear viewing rectangle about 5 by 5 feet.

When Natasha looked in the mirror, or saw herself in a picture or news reel or one of Sam’s stupid Snapchat videos, she always felt…disconnected. Seeing herself was disconcerting, as if seeing a ghost. Witnessing some sort of creature that shouldn’t be alive, but walked and breathed regardless She felt that now, watching Barnes move. It had been such a long time for both of them, filled with horror and blood and trauma. Seeing him alive was as disturbing and refreshing as she expected. Every other time she’d encountered him, it was the same.There was always a pain attached to his presence, a distracting aura that had the unique ability to make her feel regretful and sick and relieved all at once. Logically, she knew that was what remained of her programming, the bits of Department X and the Red Room left behind in her grey matter. Of no fault of his own, she would always associate him with torture and psychotropic drugs and psychological abuse. She had come to terms with the fact that perhaps there was no getting around that, it was just how her life had to be. But she could handle the metallic taste, the uneasy hum beneath her skin. She’d gotten very good at ignoring all those little signs of her growing unease and it was simple enough to bury them deep and trudge through whatever interaction was necessary. It was routine for her.

This, however…this was different. Not only did she need to face him down, she had to juggle their shared trauma and the weight of everyone’s expectations on her. This whole thing, his recovery - it wasn’t really _all_ on her, but it might as well be that way.

“It is not a permanent location.” Siti explained, regarding Barnes with as much shrewd investigation as Natasha was. “We’re preparing a suitable quarters for him, something that balances security and comfort.”

Natasha nodded. “I can imagine this set-up is, uh, not really helping.” And Barnes _did_ seem agitated, held within a room with a two-way mirror. She wondered if he knew how many people were watching. She wondered if he knew she was watching.

Swallowing her nervousness, Natasha cleared her throat. “So do I have clearance and permission to just go in?”

Siti glanced at her, hands crossed behind her back, and then turned to face Natasha fully. “You’ll have to stop by and check in with security before you do, but yes. We want you to be available as often as possible. That includes attending tests and keeping up-to-date with our research team, on top of your social concerns with him.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Natasha lied through her teeth, regarding the glass expanse for a long moment. _Bite the bullet, Romanova._ “Am I cleared to go in now?”

Siti nodded and showed her the code for visitors. Natasha tapped at the panel and watched as the door slid open.

She stepped into the room.

He had to have heard the sequence and beeps that signaled her arrival. Barnes stood still in front of the simple bed they’d set up for him, his back to her.

Natasha studied him. His hair was tangled and frizzy, she assumed from his gyro vacation, and he’d pulled it up off his neck into a haphazard knot. He was wearing a blue and grey flannel shirt, faded and desaturated from prolonged wear. His jeans didn’t look much better.

She spoke before she could stop herself, and once the words came they didn’t stop.

“You sure they picked you up in _Bucharest_? I get that grunge is in again but did you really have to go full Burning Man-attending, ‘gap year for a backpacking trip around Europe’ hipster? Is there no middle ground in this century?”

Barnes’s shoulders were already stiff with tension, but at the sound of her voice he visible bristled. She prepared herself for whatever was about to happen as he turned, rolling her own shoulders back and lifting her head in what she hoped was cooly confident, indifferent. He was slow, deliberate, and as his face came into view she could see he was regarding her with a genuine hint of malice - and more than a little confusion.

His brow furrowed at the sight of her in the doorway, business-casual in her turtleneck, trouser leggings, and knee-high boots. “W…What the fuck?”

Natasha pouted. She had a variety of scenarios in her head for how this meeting would go. His look of agitated confusion hadn’t really factored into any of them. She waved her hand at him vaguely, up-down-up. “You know, this whole deal. The hair, the flannel and ratty t-shirt, the jeans-plus-boot combo.” She tilted her head. “Very 90s. Very American Apparel lumberjack.” He kept staring. “No offense, of course. I’m not saying it’s a bad look or anything. It’s just not what I anticipated an aging World War II POW-turned-assassin to pull from the wardrobe.”

Barnes was, in a single word, unamused. His mouth seemed to shift down another degree with each word she spoke. With that sour expression, he looked like some kind of angry prissy housecat.

“Honestly, I was expecting old man khakis.”

Contritely, he growled, “Miss Romanoff, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but -”

 _Oh,_ she thought, nearly startled. _He does recognize me. Well, he recognizes Agent Romanoff: ally to good ol’ Steve. Traitor, double-crosser, general annoyance._

“I’d prefer Natasha, if it’s all the same,” she interrupted, ignoring his quiet grump of protest. She set her purse on the end table by the door. While she shrugged out of her leather jacket, she watched him from the corner of her eye - there was no further flash of recognition. “If you want to use titles, I’ll answer to Agent. Or ‘International Fugitive Romanoff’.” She turned and shot him a smirk over her shoulder. “That one is new.”

“Miss Romanoff,” he repeated, ignoring her quip. It hurt to hear it come from him so laced with disdain. His eyes were narrowed as he observed her coldly. “You get a lot of work as a spy, talkin’ that much?”

Against her better judgement, she barked out a laugh. “Ha! Steve warned me you might be sassy.”

His posture was still stiff, but now his eyes softened just a touch.. He still looked like he was ready to bolt or fight, but his shoulders relaxed a degree. He began his pacing again...like a caged animal. As he passed her on his next patrol length of the room: “Steve sent you?”

Natasha waited until he could see her on the next pass, finding it interesting that he allowed his back to be to her even for so brief a time. She nodded, having not moved from near the doorframe. She didn’t want to spook him, but she also didn’t want to communicate too much to him that he could use. Her fingers rubbed on the lining in her leather jacket, tossed over her forearm.

Barnes grumbled something under his breath and then, “ _Steve_ sent you, and not your pal Stark?”

Natasha’s eyebrows hitched towards her hairline. She glanced around ( _end table chair doctor’s stool bed door walls)_ and then moved slowly towards the wheeled stool in the corner. She could feel his cold, assessing sniper’s stare boring into her back as she mimicked his patrol stride and path. Once perched on the chilled vinyl, she tucked one leg under her thigh and used her other foot to pull her closer towards him. When she was close enough that his hackles raised and he began to look uncomfortable with her proximity, she paused and grinned.

She made a show of rotating herself back and forth, aiming a deceptive smile at him. “Come on, Sarg. Don’t insult yourself. If I were here for Stark or anybody else and I meant you harm, you’d know that already. We wouldn’t be talking.” She winked sweetly to top the threat off.

At the high point of their time together, she’d spent _hours_ around him. As much as it hurt to consider now, there were a handful of positives to take away from that closeness. Point one, she’d become something of an expert in categorizing and cataloging each and every single one of his tells. Point two was…considerably less useful. She’d have to be careful because unless they wiped it out of him as well, he would be able to pick hers up just as well - no matter how crafty she was in hiding them, no matter how much they had taken. He was smart. Now, though, his left eyebrow twitched - a tell of his that told her he was both surprised and amused at her quip.

“I guess…” He hesitated, pursing his lips. He studied Natasha for a long moment. She let him. Her hands were clasped in her lap, her posture open ( _never too open_ ) and borderline friendly. She knew him well enough that her off-handed humor and congeniality had hit its mark. She wasn’t about to check him as won over just yet, but she was confident she was neatly on her way there.

Just as the thought passed her mind, Barnes’s shrewd grey eyes narrowed. _Shit._ “So what am I to you, then?”

Her breath caught violently in her throat. She cursed herself for not catching the reaction sooner. Both of his eyebrows lifted regardless. “What?”

“I said,” he shifted, moving like a big panther, unnervingly quiet, to sit on the edge of the frame Siti’s team had placed a mattress on. He was at her eye-level now, still coldly assessing her. “What am I to you? You got a grudge? I owe you something?”

 _Something like that,_ she thought wearily. “ _I_ owe Steve. He wanted me here.”

Barnes frowned. “For what? To be my babysitter?”

“No, he -“ Natasha set her mouth into a grim, apologetic line. “He thought that maybe someone with similar life experience might…help.”

His face shut down completely, mouth set again in a stubborn line. “Where is he? I wanna talk to him.”

Natasha sighed. Christ, she wanted Steve here too…but she couldn’t admit that Barnes. God, but he was just as stubborn and headstrong as she remembered. It would only be a matter of time until he’d petulantly cross his arms and pout.

“You can’t right now,” she said carefully. “He’s on a mission that required him to go dark. I can’t even speak to him right now.”

Barnes’s mouth opened and closed before settling in that firm, angry line again. “Get out,” he commanded, voice pitched low and weary.

“Дурачок.” She huffed in exasperation. “I know you have a case of freezer burn at the moment, but I really suggest you _listen_ to me -”

The first lesson she learned from the Winter Soldier was the importance of speed. Her reflexes and reaction time had been fine-tuned with brainwashing and torture -the Soldier filled in where the serum and training left off. There were some lessons she would not perfect without experiencing a little bit of pain, as the department didn’t want to risk the remaining assets making fatal mistakes in the field. So rather than die as a valuable asset, they would return to their quarters battered and bruised from training with _him_. He taught them to be agile, taught them how to use every convenience of their small forms and light feet. And when they got complacent, he stopped holding back. He was fast for a man his size, but the day he knocked her out cold with a swift punch to the jaw was the last day she got overconfident. She never underestimated him after that - she just began to assume he was hiding something. The next move, the next weapon, the next burst of adrenaline. Whatever it was, she would be ready for it, and she would not disappoint the Soldier or her handlers again.

Until now. Recently…well. Recently Natasha had gotten complacent. Whether she was so wrapped up in her head lately or losing her touch altogether, she barely had time to react before she found herself with her back against the wall.

Barnes had jumped with barely any commotion, even with the mass he’d put on during two years in hiding. Now he towered above her, threateningly close. The fingers of his right hand gripped her shoulder and held her still. It was painful. Of course, she could break the hold if she really wanted, but inciting a fight with him was not in her interest - no doubt he would knew that and would retaliate if she tried.

He was staring at her, _glowering_ really, and she was struck by how unfamiliar his stormy eyes had become to her over the years. There was no recognition in them now, but she was fine with that as long as they weren’t clouded over with that awful Soldier’s glaze. When was the last time they’d been this close without pain, she had to wonder. At the airport when she’d double-crossed T’Challa to allow Steve to escape with him in tow? She’d replayed his brief thankful nod a thousand times over.

 _He didn’t know you then, you silly fool, and he doesn’t you now,_ Natasha chided herself. _Don’t be a child._

She cleared her throat. “Well, you certainly have more spring in your step than the average vet.” Had his mouth twitched at her back talk, or was that her imagination?

“You’re awfully fuckin’ loud for a spy, y’know.” He rumbled. The sudden appearance of that Brooklyn lilt ( _always when he was about to lose his temper, she thought delightedly_ ) charmed a laugh out of her that he misinterpreted as flippant. The hand on her shoulder squeezed once, painfully threatening before he let go. He gave her a little shove when she stood stock-still. “Get. Out.”

Barnes had the decency to hand her the leather jacket draped over the stool. Natasha swung her purse over her shoulder and shuffled out the door when he pressed his palm to the panel that opened it. Before she crossed the threshold completely, she turned to look at him and opened her mouth.

He shook his head and regarded her coldly. “Cut your losses, sweetheart. If you don’t have Steve with you next time, don’t bother coming back.” Slamming the door in her face would have been an appropriate end to that threat, but unfortunately each side only slid carefully, quietly shut.

She made it about ten steps down the hall before the nerves and adrenaline caught up to her and she began laughing. Several of the medical staff still stopped what they were doing to stare at her. Siti was around the corner and hurried over with furrowed brows. The team behind her look mildly disturbed, and Natasha couldn’t blame them.

“Agent Romanoff?” The doctor asked, one hand hovering between them as if it might land on her shoulder.“I - that was much sooner than we anticipated. Did something happen?”

Natasha gave her a little shrug, rolling her shoulders and the ache being slammed against the wall had gotten her. “Visiting hours were up for the day, apparently.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha makes progress and a few friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's long y'all.

 "Your soul has fallen to bits and pieces. Good. Rearrange them to suit yourself."  
                                                     -Hermann Hesse, from STEPPHENWOLF, _1927_

 

* * *

 

 

T’Challa invited her to breakfast the next morning.

Natasha is not too proud to admit that she spends the majority of the meal staring at him. She can see how it would be easy for someone to discredit the man as just another spoiled, egocentric ruler with a face as pretty as that. Though it would be a mistake and a disservice to him. While he was easily one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen, she also recognizes that he’s one of the most purely _good_ she's had the fortune to meet. T’Challa was tolerant and patient in a way that seemed almost unattainable in how authentic it was. On anyone else, that kind of pure, natural character would come across as insincere. T’Challa wore his emotions on his sleeve, and he didn't shy from speaking his opinion, but his compassion was remarkable. It had no end, no stipulation. But the leader of Wakanda was anything but a fool. Natasha had witnessed his self-control and tolerance firsthand. She had been a recipient of it many times in the past year; even now, seated on a plush cushion in the grand dining area she’d been led to, he was exercising that kindness. 

Natasha thoughtfully chewed a piece of fruit as she watched T’Challa likewise dig into his food. This man whom she had fought _and_ betrayed had nevertheless given her refuge - he could have just as easily refused, let her to struggle on her own. She’d done enough to deserve it, and so it seemed strange that they could eat in such easy, comfortable silence. She watched the sun play on his sharp cheekbones and deep, rich skin. He seemed the embodiment of the panther god, feline grace and prickling, capable danger under the surface. His eyes even glinted with something dark and mysterious in the early white-gold sunlight, oddly similar to the holographic flashing of a cat's eyes in the darkness.

Suddenly he looked up smiling coyly as he caught her in her stare. When he noticed her assessment, she wasn't fast enough to look away.

“Is there something on my face?” There’s a rumble there, under that question, something smug and barely quashed. His grin mirrored it, an amused little quirk of his eyebrow. It iwas absolutely _enthralling_. Natasha could see the confident young hotshot prince that he must have been not months before the whole mess that aligned them had begun. She felt suddenly and inexplicably guilty about having played even a small part in taking that from him.

She shook her head, trying her best to feign an intense aspect of thoughtfulness. She jabbed her fork into another cube of delicately sweet, wholly unfamiliar fruit, inspecting it nearly cross-eyed before biting down. He was still smirking at her from across the table when she focused on him again.

Natasha shrugged. “I was just thinking about how much you look like your father,” she lied carefully, embarrassed at having been caught - but unwilling to let a chance to play her cards pass.

T’Challa’s face tightened into something of a grimace; it made him no less dazzling. “I - oh.” After a beat, the look softened until all that was left was a pained twist of his mouth. “Thank you, Natasha. That is very kind of you to say...no matter how unexpected.”

Natasha dipped her head. “Of course.”

The prince-to-be-king chewed on his lip, eyes glazed and distant as they traced across the pointed rooftops out the window. She assumed it was very careful introspection, as it lasted for a long moment. When he turned back to her, the smile was wistful and sad.

T'Challa cleared his throat before he spoke: “I wasn’t aware you knew him.”

 _Shit,_ she thought. She hadn’t come prepared for a heart-to-heart.

“I didn’t - at least not well,” Natasha admitted after her own generous pause. She twirled her fork between her fingers, left hand propped under her chin. She was debating on the truth and whether she would ( _could_ ) share it with him when it suddenly forced itself from her anyway. “I only met him once before - well. God, it must have been the early 2000s.”

T’Challa’s only response was to offer her a slight inclination of his head, a signal for her to continue. His interest was genuine now, more than a polite audience for her rambling.

 _Was this something she could share with him?_ She asked herself. _What good would it do to bare another secret with no reason?_

 _That’s all,_ she could say, _It was a mission_.

It’s the easy answer, sure, but it’s only part of the whole story. It had been more for her, one of the first tastes of independence and freedom after her escape. Did T’Challa deserve to know the whole story even when it might do no good to heighten her image, or gain something in return? It was selfish to think in terms of her own gain, but she had operated for so long on nothing more. It was second nature, that clawing for any grasp on survival.

Natasha mulled this over,regarding him. The silence was long - long enough that he was beginning to look concerned. There was a pile of papers beside his plate of food, perhaps important decrees and documents. He seemed to have no interest in them at the moment, as his hands moved to rest under his chin, elbows crumpling the papers. For some reason, the attention on her was… comforting. He had no idea what she would say, but he seemed to _care_ , more than the forgotten formal responsibilities under his elbows. Whether it was because it topically involved his father or not, she wasn’t sure. Maybe she _was_ going soft, losing her touch, but possibility of establishing something with another human when she felt so lonely was more than tempting. In the end, it made her decision for her.

Natasha popped another piece of fruit into her mouth, chewing slowly. “Back then, for a time, I was Natalie. I’ve been a lot of Natalie's, more than a handful of Nadia's, one or two Naomi's, but this was different. I…I was in a pretty deep cover. It was fun and fulfilling in a way that I had never experienced. I never got to go to school or college. This time I had... Natalie Richmond had a whole academic background. She was a starry-eyed Ivy League grad student, she'd landed a coveted UN internship.” Natasha studied the designs on the section of her plate she had almost managed to clear, trailing the prongs of her fork through the deep, sticky red juice the fruit had left behind. “Not legitimately, of course. Not without doctoring of applications and bribing. But it was Natalie’s dream job and it was important for the mission. They placed me a headquarters in Nairobi.Your father showed up at one of the leaders’ summits and he…” Natasha shook her head, wistful grin impossible to control. “He was so kind to Natal - to _mewarm_ … the way he - he really did just fill a room. I’m sure you would know the best of anyone what I’m talking about.”

When T’Challa spoke, his voice was thick with something proud, something mournful. “I do, yes.”

Natasha glanced up. She found that he looked like a lost boy, face softened by youthful sadness. Carefully, she set aside her fork and reached across the table. There was a fair bit of hesitation, but eventually she found the courage to lay her hand gently over his forearm. He glanced up at her, eyes wary, though he allowed the touch.

“Hey,” Natasha offered, uncomfortable with the strange weight in her chest. She cleared her throat. “T’Challa, listen. A lot of my training is in political espionage and manipulation. But I want you to know that when I say I believe he would be proud of you, I’m really… I mean it, okay? I’m saying that with every ounce of sincerity that I’m capable of.” 

He choked out a laugh. Bolstered by the response, she shot him a careful grin: “I know that’s probably not saying much, considering my track record with sincerity, but I _do_ believe that.”

To her surprise, just as she was about to break the point of contact, T’Challa’s other hand lifted from where he had been clutching the edge of the table. It settled over hers, warm where he pressed in against her knuckles. Not a word was spoken - he simply let the comfort linger for a long moment. Then, he squeezed her fingers gently and she took the cue to return to her own personal space.

“Thank you for joining me, Natasha. However, I would request you warn me the next time we venture into such territory.” His eyes twinkled. “I will have something alcoholic ready for us.”

Natasha tossed her head back and laughed, feeling lightheaded at the turn of events. Plenty of people were careful of themselves around her, and Natasha was no stranger to the desire for protection from people like her. T’Challa, she realized, had reached the point of letting those fortifications down before she had. Inviting her to breakfast, his guest and an ally, could easily have been nothing more than a nicety. But there had been no need for him to _listen_ to her, to allow her odd rambling about his deceased father that she had barely knonwn. There was no pity, either; Natasha had no doubt that he had read her files and knew her past. If he pitied her, considered her a sad and and broken thing, he was good at hiding it. The more she tried to rationalize his behavior and congeniality, the more she realized the truth: there was something new, something light and _good_ between them now. She could feel it under her skin like lightening, a soft and familiar comfort like a weighted blanket over her. Natasha had told this man the _truth_ … or what she knew of the concept, at the very least. More importantly he had accepted it. He had appreciated her honesty, but he had _believed_ her. She could have easily made up something about his father, could have fed him some easy story to keep the brittle alliance between them, but she…hadn’t. He trusted her for the truth, and she had given it to him willingly.

T’Challa’s smile was real now, faded of any polite pretense. It was a bright and full thing that had her heart jumping in her chest. It made her think of sitting on Clint’s balcony, enjoying a shitty cup of Folgers, talking and laughing as Kate desperately tried to train that dog. It made her think of Wanda and her never-ending patience, the rainy Sunday where she did her best to help Natasha through her first kalach recipe. She thought of Sam and Steve, their movie nights, video game tournaments, their unconditional compassion. Friendship was not something she considered lightly, and it was so new to her in many ways. She valued all the connections she’d forged. With Clint, it was always effortless. Sam and Steve were natural. Wanda came from a place of mutual hurt, of mutual culture, and theirs was almost sisterly.

With T’Challa, it was… quiet, perhaps. Slow. Their interactions had been comforting in a way that she doubted she deserved, much less explain. Between them floated a strange sort of respect. It felt as if it had always been there, and thought it was still laced with a healthy dash of mutual secrecy and lingering distrust. But it was no more than could be expected of a young King with the weight of the most powerful nation’s expectations on his shoulders and an infamous, lonely assassin on the run.

“We have these candies,” T’Challa said suddenly, breaking the silence between them. He rolled a word on his tongue, one Natasha couldn’t repeat. “My baba, he used to pick them for me whenever he came back from a mission. I started associating them with his safe return. They’re these small…” his brow furrowed as he searched for an adequate translation, hand drawing circles as he thought. “They’re hard on the outside but when you bite into them, it’s the warmth of the plains and taste of its fruit soft and soothing - but not bland.”

Natasha made as if she were to hand her plate across the table to him. “Are you still hungry? How can you possibly be talking about candy after putting away all that food?”

There was a taunting curl to his mouth as he ignored her quip. “My point is that you are similar to these candies, I think. Hard and unyielding on the outside, careful to pretend you do not have a mushy, pleasant center.”

The shock of his demeanor startled a belly laugh from her, sudden and loud that echoed off the walls of the breakfast nook. The Dora Milaje - Ayo, Natasha remembered her face - glanced towards the noise curiously and then away just as quickly as she registered T’Challa was not in harm’s way.

“No one has ever called me pleasant before.”

He shrugged, still grinning.

“I may not have my prototype gauntlets with me, so you’re safe from the voltage.“ She jabbed a finger at him. “But don’t try me unless you want to wake up with those ridiculous little booties for cats on.”

T’Challa huffed, watching her as he granted himself a reserved chuckle. The sound was warm and deeply contagious. She waggled her finger at him to little effect, and it only seemed to make his unfazed smirk widen. “Don’t think I won’t stoop to petty thievery. I’ll find myself a spray bottle or something around here and _so help me_ -”

His face twisted incredulously before he - the King of Wakanda, the most powerful man in the world - _snorted._ Natasha’s hand flew over her mouth in an attempt to hide the stupid smile that spread across her face, undeniably _happy_ in such an authentic, silly momentbetween them.

Around eleven thirty, Ayo moved from her station near the door and gracefully interrupted their conversation. “My King, it is time.”

T’Challa shot her a smooth, apologetic smile. The soft crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes reminded her of Sam’s laugh lines, and Natasha found her lips twitching in response. “For a meeting with the Taifa Ngao, our elders.” He inclined his head. “Truly I am fortunate to have their wisdom as my council, especially with the loss of my father. As much as I enjoyed speaking with you, I should at least grant them an audience for their support.”

Natasha shrugged. “Of course. The duties of a King and all that.”

They stood at the same time, Ayo watching her with a cold eye until Natasha dipped in the bow she had been taught. Her arms crossed, a clean X over her chest with clenched fists. Her eyes were to the floor, as Majda had instructed, her courtly manners stiffening her every move. When she rose, T’Challa was beaming. He hummed when she strode forward to shake his hand, a respectful conglomeration of the practices of their two cultures, and ended the gesture early in favor of placing his warm hand on her shoulder.

“You honor me, Natasha Romanoff, and I am pleased that you have yet to give me a reason to regret extending an invitation of asylum to an outsider.” He said, voice brassy and authoritative in the echoing space. Natasha dipped her head in another small gesture…but also to conceal the pleased flush she could feel heating her cheeks.

“Thank you. Your company was a pleasure,” she turned to acknowledge the Dora Milaje warrior standing beside him. “And thank you Ayo, for your mercy and your service to the King.”

“I do not need your flattery, outsider,” the tall woman snapped, but Natasha had seen the vague appreciation her manners had stirred in the warrior. “Do not go looking for trouble.”

Natasha flashed her a toothy grin before raising two fingers to her temple in a salute. “Yes ma’am, but I have to warn you that trouble usually comes looking for me.”

Ayo rolled her eyes and T’Challa flashed her an exasperated glance, but as the two of them left the room, he shot Natasha a wink over his shoulder.

 

The next morning, Friday, saw Natasha curled up on the plush living room sofa, nails clicking rapidly as she typed. She’d set up the tablet from Steve with a few things, namely a silly little free journal, one whose loading screen mimicked the atomic pink locked journals Natasha had always wanted. She’d found a promising little diary in a Brooklyn bookstore once, a hideous velvet one colored like overripe raspberries. She hadn’t been particularly keen on spending nearly $75 on a glorified notebook, and so the app she’d found was the next best thing.

Natasha paused her latest dream log to return her focus back to the toothbrush in her mouth, zoning out as she watched a British news anchor break down Tony’s latest political alliance back in the States.

There was the familiar little warm-up beep from the AI in her ceiling, and the tone signaling someone at the door began to chirp. Natasha had asked for it to play a traditional doorbell sound, but apparently the hyper-advanced AI had less loaded ringtones than some shitty standard early 2000s Nokia.

“I’ve been on the run as a fugitive more times than I can count,” Natasha said outloud, and locked her tablet before tossing it aside. A resounding _crack_ echoed as her tablet from Steve collided with the much more sturdy vibranium tablet one issued by Siti. Natasha turned to see that the red case on Steve’s had shattered, leaving only its matte grey shell behind. “Oh, good. Shit. God, today is just gonna be - a professional fugitive, a hermit, and I have to have all these goddamn _visitors_.”

She padded over the door and yanked it open (despite the ceiling AI offering to do it for her). Standing on the other side was Majda, accompanied by a beautiful young woman with rich sepia skin and a set of ring blades attached to a weapon loop on her hip. She was shorter than Majda and only a hair taller than Natasha herself, but she carried it like royalty.

“Oh. Heeey, Maj,” Natasha greeted. The nickname earned the Dora Milaje warrior a quizzical glance from her companion. Natasha took the toothbrush from her mouth and smiled apologetically. “Are you strapped and packed to deal with me? ‘Cuz honestly I’d like to go out of this life with minty-fresh breath if I get a say in it, so if you give me just a minute…”

Majda snorted. “If we were here for you, Romanoff, you would not have a say at all.”

Natasha tilted her toothbrush at the taller woman and shrugged. “Touché. Who’s your friend, by the way? I know you guys want me out of here as soon as possible, but you also keep introducing me to beautiful women. Seems kinda counter-intuitive.” The wink she aimed at Majda’s companion initially earned her a quizzically raised eyebrow, which was disappointing. But not a second later, a burgundy flush on the apples of her cheeks appeared. That was certainly _not_ disappointing.

“You may call me Nakia, Natasha Romanoff. T’Challa speaks highly of you. He also says you have things in common and I see it - you are both unashamed flirts.” Nakia’s lips are full, plush things painted a deep violet that, if Natasha were less respectful, she might daydream about smearing. But she was respectful, damn it, so shrugged instead and flashed a charming smile. “Guilty as charged. Majda, I know you’re cruel, but you’re not cruel enough to introduce me to a stunning, capable woman without reason. What’s up?”

Majda rolled her eyes at the two of them before settling a half-hearted glare in Nakia’s direction when she let out a pleased chuckle. “Bastet. I should not have brought you up here. In the future I will simply expect Natasha to be irritating around the clock, instead of only occasionally. _You,_ put that flippant appendage back in your mouth before I cut it out,” she snapped at Natasha affectionately. The redhead conceded with a laugh, palms up between them in surrender.

“I’ll behave, I’ll behave. If I make you mad, you’ll stop coming around with your pretty friends and I definitely wouldn’t want that.”

“In your _mouth_ , I said, not wagging about like -”

“Hmmm, now that you mention a wagging tongue…” Natasha purred. Nakia laughed behind her hand, amused at Majda’s flustered growl.

The older warrior pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I am already regretting this decision. I simply came to inform you that I will be away on a mission. One of Nakia’s contacts might have information on the command book imprisoning Sergeant Barnes. She has requested I accompany her because - well, it is possible that a very dangerous information trader may have possession of it.”

“It will be good to have another pair of eyes on the ground,” Nakia agreed. “Between the two of us, it will not fall into the wrong hands. We can prevent that type of control and psychological terror to be inflicted on any other person, and the research will help Sergeant Barnes’s recovery.”

Natasha looked between them thoughtfully. “Those are all of the secrets Hydra had. I assume there’s some info left from when the Department X was still operating, when the Red Room was still around. I think I could help you on this one - I’ve got firsthand experience after all.”

Majda’s answer was quick and curt. “No.”

“Okay, I’ll - uh. No?”

The other woman crossed her arms, looking impatient. “Natasha, you’re in no state to accompany us on such a mission.”

Natasha blinked and then glanced down at herself. “Well shit, it’s the Animaniacs print sweats, isn’t it? I knew they were a little loud, but I’m just so tired of black all the time.”

Majda rolled her eyes again. “This mission requires us to be absolutely covert. We need to blend in until the last possible moment, and you, Natasha, you will attract attention _everywhere_ in Wakanda with your appearance.” Majda’s hands moved between them in an up-down gesture. “Besides, we leave in the next quarter of an hour.”

Natasha hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “I can squeeze into the suit in like five minutes.” She winked at Nakia. “Three if I get some help.”

Nakia simply shook her head, smiling exasperatedly. Majda swore and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Romanoff, I swear…I came to tell you to seek Okoye out if you needed anything, but now I think I will return to her and the Dora Milaje know I will not be around to protect you from target practice. Come, Nakia, our transport is likely waiting.”

“I hope you know Okoye wouldn’t help me anyway!” Natasha called as the two warriors glided down the hallway and out of sight. “I’m actually pretty sure she’d be first in line for target practice.”

The ceiling chirped and shut the door when Natasha retreated back inside. The voice sounded almost _teasing_ when it spoke next: “So you are aware, Agent: each of the Dora Milaje has emergency access to a guest’s rooms at all times.”

“Great,” Natasha grumbled. “At least give me a warning before they stage their ambush. I want to at least change out of these pants so I don’t have to have the most embarrassing crime scene photos in existence.”

“You seem confident that Wakanda would eve be interested in moving forward with an investigation if you were to…pass.”

Natasha whirled around, searching out the blinking light in the panels on the ceiling, struck dumb by the teasing tone the program had taken. “Did you just make a joke about my untimely death?”’

“I cannot help but feel detached from your wellbeing since you refused to give me a name.”

Natasha sighed and tipped herself backward onto the sofa, making sure she moved the tablets out from under her to avoid crushing them. She kicked her feet thoughtfully. “Very funny, Comedy-Bot. I assume, since you’re a robot, that you have don’t have a preference for…gender of a name, right?”

There was a beat before the voice answered back: “Yes. That makes logical sense.”

“Well, I’m only warning you because you’re asking a Russian to give a technological human construct a genderless name. You know we can’t even manage that with inanimate objects, right?” Silence. “Fine, I’ll think of something. I feel like you wouldn’t appreciate my humor, so Rasputin’s out.” More silence. Natasha hummed. “Okay, what do you think of…”

 

Friday passed slowly, with most of her sources of entertainment gone. T’Challa had political appointments in the afternoon, Majda was away, and Barnes was…well. He was still being _Barnes_.

Natasha was not a psychologist. She wasn’t a scientist, either, and yet the past two weeks had been filled with charts, teams to speak with, x-rays to examine and meetings to attend where she had to pretend like she knew more than half of what was being discussed. On top of it all, she was making very, _very_ little progress with him. At least, if she was making progress, she couldn’t tell. He rarely spoke more than a curt word or two to her on the days he felt like even acknowledging her presence or let her in the door. She understood the distrust, of course, and she couldn’t blame him for any of it, but it was _beyond_ frustrating. Somehow, stupidly, she had expected it to be a quick process. But the catch…the catch was that she knew what to say to gain his trust, she just _couldn’t_ say any of it. As far as she could tell, he had absolutely no memory of her. Hell, Steve had told her that he barely remembered what had happened in Washington, and that hadn’t even been five years. Siti’s teams and their massive amount of research on his brain chemistry and function backed up the idea that something, somewhere, had gotten even more muddled than it was. There were such hugely uneven and strange blank patches in his memory.

The unfortunate thing was that none of the teams seemed particularly focused on getting all those moments back for him. Not that he would _want_ them all back, of course, but to leave his memory like Swiss cheese couldn’t be good, right?

All these things and more were going through Natasha’s head, circling and circling like deep muddy tracks made in some poor mad animal’s zoo enclosure. In fact, she’d been thinking about all this since the previous night. She supposed that staring at the eye-straining device Siti had given her didn’t really ease her insomnia.

Now, the early morning light trickled between the curtains in the bedroom. The sun wasn’t quite up but she could see the near break of it on the horizon, if she looked just right through a few of the towering structures, the cresting mountains that created the sharp v-shape where their bases met, far into the mist. Natasha groaned and tossed to her side, eyes burning. She could run on a significantly smaller amount of sleep, but the last few weeks had been…trying, to say the very least. Even her enhanced metabolism was starting to feel the effects of more than a few nights of less than three hours each.

It was Saturday, and she hadn’t much to accomplish. She didn’t want to push her luck with Barnes anymore than she already had, so she doubted that two visits in as many days wouldn’t do much on that front. Likewise, Siti was gone for a scientific conference in a neighboring city, and Natasha didn’t like to hang around the lab when all the eggheads were around. They looked busy and seemed to regard her as in-the-way, even if she was sitting outside Barnes’s quarters reading.

Knowing that the week would pick back up once everyone returned, Natasha planned to wake up slow, enjoy a Saturday off, and -

“Agent Romanoff, good morning.”

Natasha groaned, muffling a louder exasperated noise by stuffing her face into the pillow.

“No need to get worked up. You have a visitor.”

Begrudgingly, Natasha muttered, “Thanks, Ceiling-a.” She had to stifle a laugh when the program beeped, sounding almost perturbed.

“If I might remind you, the name you chose for me was Ceilia -”

Natasha flapped her hand in the air and rolled to the end of the bed. There was a throb in her skull, signaling the headache that usually followed after particularly intense nightmares. She wandered out of the bedroom and towards the door, heel of her hand digging into her forehead to try and ease the ache a little.

Out of all the visitors she expected, a teenager was not one of them.

The girl outside her apartment stood about Natasha’s height. She was wearing a solid black haltered crop top printed with the face of a man Natasha vaguely recognized from an internet meme. She wore vibrant patterned harem pants that swallowed her legs, and a pair of transparent 90s jelly sandals that sparkled with a layer of glitter. Her toes were painted a violent matte purple.

“Nice shoes, kid.” Natasha said mildly. She opened the door wider and stuck her head down the hall, and then looked back at the girl with narrowed eyes. “You lost?”

One slim finger tugged the sunglasses off the bridge of her nose, and Natasha found herself being scrutinized by a pair of intelligent brown eyes. The girl sucked her teeth, sounding disappointed. “I thought you’d be waaaay taller than that, dude.” Her voice was, unsurprisingly, accented with Wakanda’s signature lilt. She lifted her hands up and down, then glanced over Natasha’s head on her tip toes. “Aren’t all like…Ukrainian and Scandinavian women supposed to be freakishly tall?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Natasha tilted her head, bemused. “And I’m Russian.”

The girl regarded her for a moment and then nodded like she’d reached a decision. “All right, you’re cool. I knew that, just wanted to hear it from you.” She lifted two fingers to her eyes, flicked them back at Natasha in an I’m-watching-you kind of motion. “Just wanna make sure you’re being real with me.”

“Care to explain why a fourteen year old is interrogating me?” Natasha girl squeezed past Natasha into her apartment, hands on her hips. She toed one of the pairs of black combat boots kicked haphazardly in the by the door.

“Rude,” she muttered, picked up Natasha’s purse from where it had been draped over a kitchen stool. “I’m sixteen and, yikes, even _my_ bedroom is cleaner than this place.” Her tone was laced with only a fraction of the peppy sass Natasha guessed she was capable of producing. “Guess you must not be entertaining many guests, huh?”

Natasha followed her towards the living room, watched as she kicked her feet up and made herself comfortable. “Technically, you’re the first.” She moved to stand in front of the television as the girl turned it on to some Wakandan teen channel blaring celebrity news. “God, switch it to something that isn’t going to rot your brain.”

The girl scoffed and tilted her head against the back of the coach, peering up at Natasha. “You sound like _ugogomi._ Hey, have you seen that Vine with the old lady -”

Natasha blinked. “Say again?”

A delighted, oddly familiar laugh: “ _Ugogomi._ I said you sound like my grandmother. Anyway, the Vine is-”

“Forget the Vine for now,” Natasha folded her arms. “Who’s your grandmother?”

The girl spun around so she was kneeling on the couch, eyebrows raised challengingly. She was smirking, the expression oddly familiar. Her posture mimicked - or mocked, rather - Natasha’s. “You wouldn’t know her, colonizer.”

Natasha sighed. “All right, touché. Wanna tell me who _you_ are, at least?”

Her dark eyes studied Natasha’s face for a moment, incredulous, then sparkled with amusement as she laughed bright and loud. “Oh shit, you really don’t know! This is too good.”

Natasha watched with interest as she lifted her wrist to her mouth and spoke a series of Wakadan words - into the string of dark, gleaming beads on her arm. With a purplish glow they flickered to life, and there was a moment’s pause before a robotic voice chirped what sounded like an affirmative. The teenager glanced back at Natasha when the process was done, and then lifted her wrist one more time, this time speaking in English: “And please put in my number to our esteemed guest’s contacts. Across all devices, if you will.”

She winked and then, with youthful energy, cheerfully bounded over the back of the couch. Her jelly shoes squeaked against the stone tile when she landed, summarily in Natasha’s personal space. She was smirking still, something wicked and _knowing_ in the dangerous turn of her mouth. It didn’t look unkind, but Natasha had known enough teenagers to understand that look meant nothing good for her. With one last glance around Natasha’s apartment, curious and just a teeny bit judging, the girl began to move backwards towards the door.

“Hey, house burglar, you never answered my question.” Natasha called, too late. She was gone.

Natasha huffed, not fond that her private space had just been basically She tilted her head up towards the screen, where a lit circle in the ceiling tile quickly flashed off, as if it had been caught observing. Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “Ce, you fucking sneak. Can you tell me who that was? Why does a teenager -” 

The light flashed on slowly and nonchalantly, somehow injecting enough personality into that slow, deceptive blink to make the gesture nearly human. It was more than a little eerie.

“Under strict orders by my creator, I am not authorized to disclose that information.” The voice interrupted. Now she could swear it sounded… _smug_. Natasha huffed again, ignoring how petulant it threatened to make her sound, and shuffled towards the linen closet to retrieve towels for the bath she was interrupted from. Still, he couldn’t ignore the desire to give as good as she was getting - from an AI, no less. As she turned the corner into the bedroom, Natasha hoped Ceilia could somehow _see_ the middle finger she flashed.

 

On Monday, a dreary, foggy day much like the morning when she had first arrived, she stood in front of the door to Barnes’s quarters and awaited his typical grumpy response. Sometimes he told her simply to fuck off, but today was apparently not one of those days.

Instead, she was startled by the door _whooshing_ open before she could so much as lift her knuckles to the doorframe. Barnes stood in front of her in a dark t-shirt and the same jeans he’d worn during her first visit. His face was also twisted in a similar expression: disdain, mistrust, annoyance.He looked like he was about to cross his arms, only to remember that he had just theone. It swung back to his side in a tight-clenched fist as he regarded her coldly.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “Morning, neighbor.”

He sighed. “Listen, Miss Romanoff, I don’t like being disrespectful… but you’ve been giving me fuckin’ headaches, coming around like this.” Natasha’s mouth twitched. “And I’m sure you know my head’s messed up enough as it is - I don’t really need a migraine on top.”

Natasha looked at him quizzically, unable to fight back a smirk. “So why’d you open the door to talk to me?”

They regarded each other for a long moment; him, with as much intimidating disdain he could muster, and her with a knowing look. After a long moment he relented. Barnes sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face before stepping aside. Natasha read the motion for the permission it was, and waltzed airily into his quarters.She deposited herself into one of the plush armchairs that had been brought in for him, smug. He sat warily in the other spot, eyes narrowed like she’d chosen his favorite chair and he didn’t want to be petty enough to say anything. The thought thrilled her.

Natasha examined her nails, indifferent. “You have, what, seventy something years of back pay? If you’re having so much trouble with social situations, how about you use the entire team of world-renowned doctors around you. Maybe find yourself the best private practitioner money can buy?”

Barnes still looked exhausted and perturbed by her presence, but he snorted. “Isn’t that what you’re here for? To stick a bandaid on my brain and call it a day?”

She was honestly taken aback by the comment and laughed. “Barnes, come on. Would you really want someone like me as your psychologist?” He watched her and then shook his head. “That’s what I thought.”

Something like a grin made his mouth twitch, just a fleeting little movement, before he schooled it into his signature grimace. “Get outta my room, I got shit to do.”

Natasha glanced around the largely boring room, save for a stack of books tucked neatly into a bookshelf opposite the little living area. “Oh yeah, looks like you have a long to-do list to tackle.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” he growled, hackles rising. “Get out, Romanoff.”

“Aye aye, Sarg,” Natasha quipped, lifting her fingers in a salute. She was floating from the small victory of being allowed in his space for even a moment, and wasn’t even bothered by his cold dismissal.

 

Things went like that for the rest of the week. Sometimes he would let her in. Sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he didn’t even answer to knocking (she respected that and gave him his spacespace). It seemed common sense - if she was perturbed, she knew she wanted her own space. Being under constant supervision was probably stressful and exhausting on top of all of his trauma already. Having

One evening she sat outside the room, watching Barnes read a Vonnegut novel in his chair through the two-way mirror. As he flipped a page his shoulder seemed to lock up and he grimaced before rolling it gingerly. His other hand (the right) that held the spine of the book between thumb and forefinger flexed. Then, he allowed the novel to drop onto the table words-down, saving his page. Natasha watched curiously as his right hand patted at the pocket in his flannel above his heart before slipping down to his back pocket and pausing. His head snapped up, nearly meeting her eyes as he stared shamefully into the two-way mirror. He looked contrite, embarrassed…Natasha realized with a laugh _what_ exactly he was looking for. She made a note to herself to remember to dig the little bag from his backpack and bring it to her next visit.

 

Thursday marked nearly two weeks in Wakanda. In the morning, she finished up her video call with Wanda, who had Liho come up on the counter so Natasha could coo at him, and then she gathered some of Barnes’s personal affects in her purse before she slipped from her apartment and headed down to the science levels. It was late, past nine, and for the most part the levels were completely silent except for the quiet whir of vibranium-powered machines working endlessly. She came to the panel of Barnes’s room and pressed her hand to open the mirror once the AI confirmed he had not shut down permissions for some privacy - still awaken, then - and watched as the inky window cleared.

Lights were on, and - something akin to panic rolled in Natasha’s stomach.

The simple round prosthetic that Barnes had been fitted with after his reemergence from cryostasis, made to protect what was left of his left arm at the socket, was lying on the ground of his suite. Barnes himself sat on the edge of a medical gurney (it was _hovering_ , Natasha realized with something akin to childish delight), eyes fixed on the ceiling. There was a figure blocking her view of his chest and the left side of his body, shoulders shifting in a motion that told her they were working on him. They _certainly_ weren’t wearing a lab coat or the uniform of some of the interns. She strode over to the panel on the door, keeping her footsteps light, shoulders stiff as she debated on a plan.

Barnes stiffened and the figure turned as the door slid open; he with that surprised, disdainful expression Natasha was beginning to expect and - they with - _she_ -

 _Oh_. Natasha gathered herself and regarded the familiar face coolly.

The girl from the other day watched her back, eyes twinkling. Natasha rolled her own in response. “Hey, kid. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” 

Barnes looked between them, brow knitted in confusion. The girl only smiled wide and put down the vibranium tool she had in her hand, then strode over to Natasha. She was wearing a slouchy candy-pink sweater stitched with _“melanin”_ in script, fashionably threadbare and falling apart on more than one knitted loop. Her lipstick was a shade of orange that even Natasha wasn’t adventurous enough to try, but fashionable and complimentary to the girl’s dark skin. It matched the funky print on her knee-high socks and the tiny vines of tangerines embellished on her denim skirt. She was wearing a pair of stocky, silver platform oxford shoes and her braids were up in a complicated knot, into which white flowers had been intermittently woven.

“‘Sup, Red,” the girl tilted her head. “You’re part of operation Broken White Boy, too?”

Natasha hesitated, trying to piece together what the hell was going on. Clearly this kid knew Barnes and had access to the medical wing. It was possible she was an intern or residency student, but… “As far as I can piece together, I’m a temporary member of the neuropsych team with Dr. Siti.”

“Under Zaifa?” The girl looked confused for a moment and then laughed. “Oh, man. I know it’s still a little controversial, but they didn’t even…Bastet, that sucks! I can’t decide if that’s funnier than it is infuriating.”

“What is?”

“ _I’m_ supposed to be in charge, but just because I’m young they don’t want to admit I’m their superior.”

Barnes cleared his throat. “Hey, I don’t know how the two of you know each other, but I’d rather Romanoff wasn’t -”

Thee teenager shot Natasha a look that conveyed something like _men, am I right?_ before she turned around.She flapped her hand at Barnes to silence him, and used the other to wave her tool at his arm. “Don’t be an ass or I’ll leave you to the freezer burn next time.”

The playful, sharp grin that curled Barnes’s lips nearly knocked Natasha on her ass. She hadn’t seen that expression in more than a decade now. “Punk,” he shot at the girl.

“Old man,” the girl shot back, a smirk of her own in place. She jabbed the tool in her hand at him.

“Nerd.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Discount Cary Grant.”

Barnes gasped, his right hand flew up to his heart clutching it in mock hurt. The kid laughed gleefully, victorious.

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose. “All right Laurel and Hardy, I hate to interrupt. Can one of you fill me in on what’s going on here?”

 _(“Who the fuck are Laurel and Hardy?”_ Shuri asked. _)_

Barnes’s smile dropped. “What kinda spy are you, Romanoff? You don’t even recognize -”

That earned him a swat from the girl. “What’d I say about freezer burn and being nice?”

He held his hand up in defeat, but kept his glare steady on Natasha as she drew closer. “Same goes for her.”

“Hold on, let’s back up,” Natasha said. “Recognize…who, exactly?”

The young woman shook her head almost in disbelief, but there was that mischievous smile brightening her face once again. “No big deal, Red.” She shrugged, head tilted coyly. “I’m just next the person next in line for the throne of coolest country on _Earth_ , is all.” She held her hand up in a rock on gesture, and then offered Barnes her hand in a high five.

Natasha blinked. She looked between the two of them, feeling like an idiot against Shuri’s delighted expression and Barnes’s tiny, smug smirk. “You - you’re -”

“Me.”

“You’re Shuri. Shit. Princess, my apologies -” Natasha flushed at her own ignorance and hid it with a deep bow, her arms crossed in respect just as she had done for T’Challa earlier in the week.

“Ew, wait. Bastet, please don’t! Nevermind. That is so totally unnecessary.” She rolled her eyes (and twisted to elbow a quietly chuckling Barnes in the ribs). “Shut up, you ruined it! Now she’s never gonna teach me those badass throws because she thinks T will get mad!”

Natasha watched the two of them fall into a little bicker for a few moments, contemplating the dizzying spin of this conversation. She knows she should be absolutely ashamed at not recognizing the young woman, but in her defense there wasn’t much Wakanda shared about their princess, outside the vague detail of her existence, her genius, and the advancements that had been made with her help. Understandably, the country was protective about her.

“What he doesn’t find out won’t hurt him,” Natasha said evenly. Shuri stared at her. “Or hurt me.”

Shuri squeals, letting out a shriek of laughter. Her feet dance a frantically excited one-two-one-two-three rhythm. “Oooooh! Don’t play with me, dude. You have to _promise_ to show me! Man, I saw you on the news during that attack in Prague. You took that guy down like _wham! Pow!_ ” She made several other descriptive noises, kicking her feet and aiming a flurry of jabs in Barnes’s direction, just far enough away to not land any. He still folded inward defensively. “You guys probably know all the cool illegal stuff, I can’t _wait._ ”

Oh, but this was an opportunity with a capital _O._ “That reminds me. Speaking of illegal shit…” Smirking like a wild thing, Natasha plucked the plastic bag from her back pocket. She held it up between the three of them, waggling it. “I’m not an expert on Wakandan import laws, but something’s telling me you ought to start being a little nicer to me.”

The look of horrified, abject embarrassment on his face had been _completely_ worth risking the joke. His head whipped between Natasha and Shuri, pink crawling up the neckline of his shirt.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, Romanoff” he stammered as Shuri began cackling. She held the bag _just_ out of reach as he lunged forward to snatch it from her hand. “Seriously, I’m in enough trouble as it is, c’mon. In front of the goddamn _monarchy_ …”

“Sure,” she teased, and held it just out of reach. “Wouldn’t want to add five years of possession to your rap sheet.” Shuri snickered. Barnes shot her a betrayed glare.

The princess looked between them, wiping a stray tear from how hard she'd been laughing. “Wait. I know you said something about your metabolism and pharmaceuticals, but I had no idea you were resorting to the devil’s lettuce.”

It was Natasha’s turn to snicker. “Devil’s lettuce.”

“Nah, I’ve tried painkillers and stuff before. No effect.” Barnes shook his head, looking like he was schooling a twitchy little smirk into complacent stillness. He rubbed his neck bashfully. “I uh, haven’t ever…tried dope before. At least that I can remember.”

“You grew up in Brooklyn in the 30s,” Natasha pointed out helpfully. “I’m sure you’ve gotten high at least once. Also, dope is something different now.”

“It must be your metabolism,” Shuri said thoughtfully. “Natasha, you have similarly enhanced abilities, right?"

“No drink and paint outings for me,” Natasha intoned solemnly. “We’ve tested it before. I have to down like a whole bottle of tequila before I feel anything. Asgardian mead works, too. But I know Steve doesn’t even get drunk - so it’s gotta be the bootleg Russian serum.”

Shuri _tsked_ gently, but she looked miles away lost in thought. “Must suck for you guys.”

“Christ, you have no idea. I tried everything to manage the pain.” He gestures to his arm. The guilt, the pity, the sadness - fuck, it tears right through her at the expression on his face, the implications of that sentence. _Everything_ , she thinks, and remembers being surrounded by pills and bottles all in an attempt to _forget_ for just a second. “Nothing works.”

Shuri stared at him incredulously. “Bucky, you never told me _nothing_ works! We have special drugs for people like you, y’know. Our healing is advanced as hell, we barely use that junk anymore, but we have it. We’ve got mutants and shit here too.” Barnes shrugged. “So what, dude, you just try to ignore it?”

Barnes shrugged again, glancing sheepishly at the young woman and then averting his eyes. “It’s not so bad most of the time. Gets worse in the cold or if something is on the fritz or…if I’m having trouble dealing with shit. Think that part is psychological. But uh,” he blushes here, “If I feel it coming, sometimes it helps to meditate.”

Natasha grinned, imagining him joining in on the yoga sessions Banner had set up for employees of the Stark tower and the compound upstate. “Mindfulness meditation, huh? You know, I was just giving you a hard time about the hipster thing but…” she gestured to the bag now sitting on the coffee table between them. “Alternative forms of pain management and meditation, that’s really stereotypical of you.”

Barnes laughed for the first time since they began talking. Although it sounded a little hollow and it made Shuri frown, it was a sweet sound to hear all the same. “Romanoff, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, but you sure have one helluva sense of humor.”

An insult and a half-compliment in exchange for his building trust - she’d returned a secret to him, hadn’t exposed him, and she knew what that meant to people like them. She counted that a victory.

 

It was an interesting night, after that. Shuri proceeded to confuse them both with a crash course on her favorite internet memes. Natasha had the basics from Sam and Jane Foster’s dorky lab assistant, but she'd grown to prefer the absolutely surreal ones Wanda would find on the Slavic side of the internet. For her part, she had some knowledge to impress Shuri with...unlike Barnes. But she wasn’t as savvy as a sixteen-year-old genius who was innately obsessed with technology and the internet. In truth, she mainly stuck around for the novelty of witnessing Barnes’s absolutely priceless reactions.

Around the princess, he’s more animated and human than Natasha has seen in a long time. It’s interesting to watch interact. From his files, Natasha knew he’d grown up in a family home with at least one sister - and even if she didn’t have that information, it would be an easy guess with the way he takes to his friendship with the princess. They seem to be close, partially due to Shuri’s natural charisma and easy-going personality, but also because Barnes seemed to actually _enjoy_ her presence. He scowled and complained and they did a fair share of bickering back and forth, but Natasha could tell it was mostly for show. And she had to admit, the princess was growing on her. While Shuri’s ingenuity and intelligence had impressed her, what she respected most about the young woman was her compassion - just like her brother. When Barnes tired of the company, of Shuri’s tests and her prodding at his arm, he yawned politely and requested they call it a night. The girl's reaction had been immediate. Even though she’d been mid-sentence when he asked, she’d cut herself off in order to listen to his soft-spoken, almost sheepish, request. With soft, concerned eyes, she didn't try to argue or push. Natasha could tell something unspoken had grown between the two of them since Barnes had been in the country, a respect and protectiveness that made her think, immediately, of Wanda. Of T’Challa, sitting and basking in his calm presence during breakfast just a few days ago. Of Barnes and the protective kindness he'd probably had for his sister, way back when.

Now, she watched in fascination as he allowed the teenager to draw close enough to press a hand to his shoulder, just above his heart.

“ _Ubusuku benzolo_ , nerd. I’ll see you in two days’ time. I’m getting close to finishing the last prototype. The last one malfunctioned and blew up, like, _half_ my lab - I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Don’t look at me like that!” They both cross their arms and offer a slight bow to each other in the same gesture Natasha had been taught. On her way out the door, Shuri bumped Natasha’s shoulder with her own. The princess shot her a wink, and…that’s not something Natasha thinks she could translate.There’s a lot packed into that gesture that Natasha didn't feel like unpacking at the moment. Instead, she shook her head in confusion and she moved to follow the princess out, taking Barnes’s unsurprising silence as a cold dismissal. Just as she reached the door, he cleared his throat: 

“Hey, uh. Actually, Romanoff, could you wait a second?” Barnes called. Natasha turned to acknowledge him, intrigued. He was rubbing the back of his neck with his flesh hand, refusing to meet her gaze. “Listen, I was a little rude when you first showed up -“

She smirked, unable to help herself. “Just a little?”

Barnes’s eyes snapped up to hers, glaring. “Yeah, alright. More than a little. If you don’t want this apology -”

She held her hands up, shaking her head. She moved back into the room, leaning against the half-wall between his modest living room and the kitchenette, giving him space while testing the waters to how close she could get. “Oh, I’d never turn down a good groveling. I’m all ears.”

His jaw twitched as if he was grinding his teeth. Instead of coming up with the smart-ass response that was no doubt on the tip of his tongue, he only sighed and gathered himself. She was a little impressed at the control.

“I spent a real long time feelin’ more like a some _thing_ than a someone. I hurt people ‘cuz some Nazi told me to. They had their claws in my frontal lobe like I was some fucked up marionette.” His fists are clenched tight in his lap. Natasha’s heart constricted painfully. “Waking up in DC was like waking up to another level of a nightmare, but realizing that I was awake, that I was responsible for - for so goddamn much. Got to spend another two years on the run, alone. Isolated. More than a couple of times that I wondered whether I should find the tallest skyscraper and test how far of a fall I could survive in this new body.”

Natasha swallowed back a noise, stomach churning at his sudden openness. “Barnes, you really don’t have to -”

He shook his head, eyes shut. “No, I’m - what I’m trying to say is that…I know I’m out of practice, all right? I know people are fuckin’ terrified of me, they got every right to be. I’m out of practice because not a whole lotta people make an effort with me. But I…I’m fucked, Romanoff, I know that. I know I’m not exactly a peach to be around. And you… listen, you keep trying. I see that. I don’t understand why, and I don’t think I’m worth the effort of all this, but I see that and I appreciate it. They tell me you’re here to help, I haven’t given you a chance to do that. I’ve been an ass.”

He blinked slowly, lifting his chin to look at her. Natasha was struck by how familiar he was, solid and real and in front of her, grey eyes piercing into her like not a single day had passed between them. God, this was getting more dangerous with each passing day. “I gotta give you a chance to do what you came here to do, and I promise only to get cross at you if you deserve it.”

“You’ll find I often deserve it.” Natasha stood, abruptly overwhelmed, desperate to hold back the wet sob that had crawled its way up from her lungs. Her back was to him when she said, “Barnes, trust that I understand that you’ve been through hell. In my opinion, you’re allowed to get as angry as you want.”

She could feel his eyes on her, being watched with the shrewd, careful patience of a sniper. When she turned, his eyebrows were furrowed again, worry lines deep in his forehead. He seemed to be mulling over something. Natasha sighed. “C’mon, gramps. Not every single thing that comes out of my mouth is a lie, I promise.”

“That’s not what - ” The soldier huffed, sounding more like a grumpy teenager than she knew he would care to admit. “All right. Tell me something true.”

She blinked. “Something true?”

“About yourself,” he clarified, gesturing towards her. “Anything. Just one thing. I think I can tell if you lie.”

She considered him for a long moment, considered the implications of this question and his confidence at that last admission. “How significant does this truth have to be?” Barnes cocked his head. “I mean, how…should this be a _I have ten fingers and toes_ kind of obvious thing, or a ‘ _I get deeply uncomfortable while eating cotton candy because it reminds me of a traumatic experience’_?”

He shrugged, corners of his mouth curling just a degree. “Whatever you want. Is that last part true?”

“No. Anyway…well, uh, I have a cat.”

Barnes leaned forward in his chair, watching her face. She stared back at him. After a moment the grin split his face fully. “You have a cat. What’s its name?”

“Liho,” Natasha answered immediately, finding that her hand was already drifting to her jacket pocket for her phone. “Do you want to see a picture of him?” Barnes nodded. “Okay, here.”

It was a picture she’d taken of him one evening. He’d gotten his hind legs stuck in a plastic bag, spooked himself, and sent her into near hysterics as he darted around her apartment and tried to run away from himself. She’d snapped the picture when he’d finally tired out. In it, Liho was lounging in the last golden rays of sunlight coming in from her balcony, stretched out. He had heard her come closer with her phone, and looked up at her at just the right moment.

“He’s cute,” Bucky said. “What’s with the purple vest?”

Natasha tilted the screen back, taking in Liho’s sweet little face and bright eyes, missing him dearly. “Oh, that’s his training jacket. My friend Clint, he’s got this dog…Clint’s deaf, so he had Lucky trained to be a service animal, taught him a bunch of signs. He takes him around to the deaf schools around New York, sometimes. He, uh-” Natasha felt inexplicably self conscious. “He suggested I get Liho trained and…take him around to some places too. He’s living with Wanda - Wanda Maximoff -right now, but before all this shit went down I brought him pretty regularly to a rehab center in Queens.”

“Natasha Romanoff with a service animal doing charitable work, huh?” Barnes had a strange, perplexing expression on his face. He looked a little closed off, legs crossed and thumb against his mouth, but it also looked like he might be holding back a grin. “Red, that is disturbingly human of you.”

Natasha bristled and then shook it off, chuckling a little. “Yeah, well. Liho’s more reliable than most men.”

That one earned her a laugh from him, real and genuine. “Can’t argue with that.”

 

About five minutes later, Shuri appeared as Natasha rounded the corner to her apartment. Barnes had thanked her for her time and she’d taken it as her cue to leave.

“So how do you know Bucky?”

“Don’t startle me, kid. We’re old friends.” Natasha held up the little key to the door so Ceilia could see it was her returning. “Thanks, Ce,” she said when the door unlocked. Shuri followed her in.

“Man,” the girl chirped, “I can’t believe you named my AI after some shitty pun. _Ceiling-A._ Ceilia.” She rolled her eyes. “White people.”

“Good evening, Agent Romanoff. Princess Shuri,” the AI said.

“You want something to eat?” Natasha threw her jacket over the couch and padded over to the fridge, searching for food. “And you know the name’s funny, leave me alone.”

When she closed the door, Shuri was standing on the opposite side, eyebrows waggling. “You know what’s _really_ funny? What you just said about Bucky. Are you guys are, like, old friends orrrr, y’know:” she did a quick little hop-criss-cross move, punctuated it with a pelvic thrust and the first few notes of Ginuwine’s Pony. “ _Bow…bow. Bow._ That kind of old friend?”

Natasha grimaced. “Please do not ever do that in front of me again.”

“I have to inform you that if you don’t answer one way or another, I am gonna take that as a ‘yes’,” Shuri informed her. Natasha grit her teeth as the girl drew a little square between them with her index fingers. “This is a no-judgement zone, but I gotta be honest with you: I am _dying_ for some new gossip around here.”

God help her, but she was starting to like this kid.

“Listen,” Natasha said, rubbing her forehead, “you don’t want to hear the ugly truth because it is a _long_ story. Short: we’re old friends. We used to work together, and then we worked against each other.” She held a finger up when the young woman’s mouth popped open. “Shuri, you saw how he acts in there when I’m around. I don’t - I can’t blame him. I get that reaction from most people. _I_ wouldn’t even trust me, if I was on his end. But more than that… you both need to understand that this is complicated for me. What they _did_ to me - to us - was complicated. Recovery is going to be complicated, even with me around to lend him advice. He doesn’t know me, so he doesn’t trust me. And I’m going to have complicated answers for you, sometimes, because what happened to me, to him, was… _bad._ And sometimes I won’t be ready to have answers for you at all.” She paused from spreading peanut butter on the two slices of bread she’d fished out of the cabinet during her rant. “You’re a smart kid, so I hope you’ll understand where I’m coming from.”

Shuri was staring at her, eyes wide and dark and wet with something that looked suspiciously like unshed tears. She took the slice Natasha held out. “It is…it’s really that bad out there, huh? I am _so_ sorry, Natasha. I shouldn’t be joking like that.”

Natasha smiled, trying to keep it from looking too pained, and shook her head. “Nah, it’s not that. Don’t let it worry you, okay? It’s just that Barnes and I were never on the same team, if you catch my meaning. And when we were - we weren’t good people. We’ve hurt each other and I…” Natasha briefly chewed at her lip. “Well, I remember a lot more than he does. I owe a lot of people for a lot of things, but I’m pretty sure I owe James the most out of all of them. I’m here because he deserves all this help your people have been giving him.”

Now the young princess was looking at her with an odd expression. It was familiar...and it hit her suddenly how _stupid_ she had been not to have picked up on the family resemblance sooner. She looked just like T’Challa, staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and abject, condescending _knowing_.

“What?” She asked, a little perturbed at being scrutinized so intensely by someone nearly one-hundred years her junior.

“Nothing, nothing.” The princess said quickly, hands up. She stuffed half of the slice of peanut butter bread in her mouth. “I understand, Natasha. I mean, in my limited experience I understand. Trust me, I _will_ help you guys however I can.” Her cheeks warmed a little, a dusty rhubarb against her complexion. “You’re both pretty cool. I just want to see you get better.” Now she smiled, all the warmth and compassion of her brother downscaled into a feisty teenage package. Natasha couldn’t help but mirror her grin.

“Thanks, Shuri. That’s…that means a lot more to me than I’m capable of expressing,” Natasha joked. She fiddled with a thread on her sweater, rolling it against her outer thigh and thumb. “Can, uh, can I ask one more favor of you, though?”

Shuri rolled her eyes, hands on her hips, though her eyes glinted. “Nat, come on. I know better than to introduce potentially triggering memories. I won’t say anything about it.” She lifted one finger and drew an _x_ over her chest. “Cross my heart is the expression, yeah?”

Natasha chuckled. “Yeah, kid. This too.” She held out her pinky, nudged the heel of Shuri’s palm. The girl mimicked it, puzzled, before Natasha wrapped their fingers together. “I pinky promise I’ll do my best to help Barnes…and to keep your dumb brother from messing up his chance with Nakia.”

Shuri’s eyes widened, hand falling slack before she snorted. “I was gonna ask how you knew, but _-_ ”

Natasha rolled her eyes with a laugh. “I’m a spy. I know everything.”

“You don’t know Xhosa or Wakandan,” Shuri pointed out, smirking. “Plus, it’s obvious to anyone with _eyes_ that he’s stupid about her.”

Natasha flapped her hand. “Point. You’ll just have to teach me. But make your promise before I change my mind.”

The girl’s eyes were sparkling, face soft and happy. She did a little victory dance before sticking her pinky out again. “I pinky promise to help Barnes, and keep you…-” She paused, regarding Natasha carefully, clearly assessing the moment between them. “Keep you both out of trouble.”

Natasha pulled her pinky away before meeting the offered fist bump. “Cool. Hey, I also want an unofficial promise to get a tour of this mysterious lab of yours. I’ve been looking for a few weapon upgrades.”

“Hell yeah! Oh man, I’ve seen you fight, we both like those, y’know -“ she threw a couple of punches in the space between them, sound effects included. “Wrist-mounted weapons. Gauntlets? Bracelets? Yeah, I definitely know what style would suit you. Oh man, I can draft some stuff up _tonight_ , I already have so many ideas!”

Natasha laughed, shook her head. “No, _malenkiy._ Get some shut eye and work on it in the morning. I’ll see you later.”

Shuri gave her another long, calculating appraisal and then grinned bright as the sun. “Yeah, sure. Night, Natasha!”

 

It was not until Natasha was back in her bedroom that she realized how _easy_ her interactions with the teenager had been. She wondered, for a long moment, where the comfort and familiarity came from. Then it came to her, flashes of memory no more than three seconds each:

_Anya’s bright eyes, dancing and warm when Natasha made her laugh. Anya’s eyes, soft when she fed the younger girls; steel during training. Anya’s eyes, fearful but clever as they found Natasha in the dark training room._

_And then finally, Anya’s eyes...no longer bright. They were already dead, even as Natasha struggled to choke the life from her. Any energy that remained in the girl had gone to lighting her eyes with one last surge of wild, distressed panic. Then, as quickly as Natasha had caught her, she stopped struggling. She choked out one last awful, terrible sound before going limp. A drop of blood - Natasha’s, from a respectable parry from Anya's dagger - splashed onto her pale cheek. It ran into her dark hair like a tear. Natasha's fingers stayed wrapped around her throat long after it had congealed and dried._

The dreams were unmerciful, after that. Liho wasn’t around to calm her; there was no soft fur between her fingers to ground her, no pleasant, familiar din of Little Ukraine to lull her into false safety. There was only the smell of blood in her nose, only the cries of young girls who, with her, had their childhood stolen.

When sleep finally catches her, it’s with the kind of exhaustion that leaves her trembling and chilled. She drifts into inky, oppressive blackness... with Anya’s voice in her ear saying, “ _ты должен есть, Наташа. Here, it’s cold, but I stole this pirozhok. Eat, eat, krolik. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow, I want a fair fight.”_

 

* * *

 

_Meanwhile:_

Bucky Barnes had become accustomed to his new, oppressively bland quarters. It was hard to get used to the feeling of constant observation, but each day helped. Along with trust, sleep had never come easy (he doubted it ever would), but the isolation of Wakanda made him feel as though he was finally safe enough to rest.

And that, he thought the next morning, had been his first mistake. Trusting his mind to allow his body to rest. He might have fallen asleep in record time, but the nightmares were relentless as ever. He dreamt for perhaps the third time since coming back out of cyro. They were never pleasant dreams, and these were not an exception.

_First: his eye through a scope, picking apart the landscape. Choosing a target - he tightens his finger, heart pounding at the tiniest bit of pressure that launches the pullet from his rifle’s barrel. A view from above, watching the round metal dance through the air and find its mark - it embeds itself in a blood-shot eye, a perfect shot. When he goes to check the body, when he pulls the ruined helmet and checks for tags, they are his own._

_The next is more of a memory. Sam Wilson, still a stranger, and his smooth, brown hand. He’s holding out a vinyl sleeve. Here man, he says, you look like you need something moody. Sorry, he says, about the title and, uh, imagery. I’m not a Radiohead guy but it comes with a distinguished recommendation from a friend. Thanks, Bucky’s mouth forms._

_Next he’s on a familiar fire escape, watching the remaining light of the setting sun ripple through the widows of the bodega on the corner. He’s leaning against the railing of his family’s apartment. Juice runs down his chin as he takes a bite into the McIntosh apple in his hand. His ma calls from inside. He stands, calmly, and then takes a step off the fire escape into the abyss below._

_Finally, screaming as he falls. He falls and falls and falls until he goes mad with it. Snow drifts around him in this endless place, this cold place. He reaches up towards the sky, fingers clawing into grey nothingness for something, anything. He sees the arm - his arm -monstrously metallic. It aches. His mind focuses on the star, the brand. He lands with a sickening thud. The pain erupts and spreads and the snow that falls around him begins to numb his fingers._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha hasn't failed many missions in her life, but she's beginning to think this one might have just enough complications to send her careening out of orbit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Sorry for the delay - it's finals season. This one's heavy on the dialogue, but it also has some interactions i know you've probably been dying for. Thanks for being patient as usual!

"To begin living again, speaking. People, faces, a role to play. I'll need more courage than I feel capable of."  
                                                     - Albert Camus, from  _American Journals, 1978_

 

* * *

 

Shuri had bought Barnes a hot-pink neon yoga mat so he could practice his meditation without bothering his knees. That’s where Natasha found him, chest moving rhythmically and eyes shut, after her morning coffee run. She really hated to disturb him, as peaceful as he looked. God knew he deserved a little bit of quiet for once.

At the sound of her knuckles on the doorframe, he snapped to immediate attention. His eyes weren’t wild or paranoid like they had been that first week.Instead, now he looked more ‘ _yanked out of his calm_ ’ startled than ‘ _caged animal ready to fight_ ’ startled.

“Romanoff.” He greeted evenly. She still wouldn’t classify him as _friendly_ just yet, but there was certainly some progress being made. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”

Natasha shrugged and took a few tentative steps forward, holding the to-go coffee up for him to see. His eyebrow lifted dubiously. “Thought I’d drop in. I promise it’s not poisoned.”

“I didn’t think - ” Barnes trailed off, looking almost bashfully guilty. After a brief moment of hesitation, he turned and motioned her inside. “Come in.”

Natasha inclined her head to wordlessly acknowledge the hospitality. She held the the cup out for him to take as she passed. She was hesitant and careful, as if they were both territorialalley cats that could be spooked at any moment.

(She absolutely did _not_ jolt when their hands brushed.)

He followed his long sip from the cup with a pleased little hum. “Wow, that’s actually great coffee.” Barnes lifted the cup towards her. “Exactly how I like it. Did Steve tell you my order?”

Natasha smirked. “Why do you ask? Scared of being the guy that _looks_ like he orders over-priced black coffee, no milk no sugar?”

He snorted good-naturedly and moved to settle onto the stool at the inset kitchen’s two-seat island. “I can see why you get along so well with Steve.”

She couldn’t will the smirk off her face. “Yeah?”

His eyes glinted, boyishly teasing in a way that made him look much younger. “Yeah. Both of you are bossy as all hell, always got something smart ’n feisty to say.”

Natasha’s cheeks heated a little at the remark. It was so _him_ , cheekily off-handed in its sincerity. She followed his path into the kitchen. Doing her best to respect his personal space, she placed herself on the other side of the counter and settled for watching him try to hide a smug grin behind the lip of the to-go cup.

They watched each other for a moment silently until she cleared her throat. “I wanted to ask you something - Well, it’s an offer, really.”

“Shoot,” Barnes offered. He’d fished a pencil and flimsy notebook from the top of a stack of books on the counter.When he saw her watching, he grinned. “Don’t wanna hear one crack about being elderly. Crosswords and coffee has always been a morning habit. Promise I’m listening.”

She was suddenly unsure how the question might be received. She didn’t want to ruin the morning for him, and proceeded carefully.

“Well, forgive me if this is a little awkward. But…is there someone I can contact for you?” He blinked at her, comically owlish. Natasha sighed and circled her wrist in a _you know_ kind of motion. “Because of how fast we yanked you out of Bucharest?”

Barnes was just looking at her. “Don’t follow.”

She tilted her head, debating the possibility that he was purposefully playing dense with her. “I mean…do you have a pet that needs fed in that apartment? Little old lady wondering where her grocery valet vanished to?” She cleared her throat, hoping he’d get the message. “ _Friend_ that might be concerned?”

Now he was staring at her as if she had sprouted another head. “Do I seem like the kinda guy that would make friends easily? Especially at that point in my life?”

“I…” Natasha sighed, and then considered that. “Hm. Well. That’s a good point. It’s not the point I’m trying to make, but it’s a good one.” _C’mon, Barnes, she willed. Don’t make this more awkward than it has to be._ “More along the lines of someone who you might have had to leave behind? Someone that should know you’re safe?”

He simply stared. “I just said -”

 _Oh for …byla!_ Natasha threw her hands up, rolled her eyes. “Barnes! You aren’t that dense. Did you have a significant other we might be able to help you get in touch with? Girlfriend, boyfriend, fuck buddy?”

Barnes’s cheeks reddened so comically fast that she wondered if he might faint. His big hand came up nervously, patting at the back of his neck in a tell-tale tick of nerves.

“Christ,” he grumbled. “You gotta be so vulgar about it?”

“This is the 21st century. I can be as vulgar as I like.” She _tsked_ and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Besides, you don’t have to be so thick about it.”

Silence settled then, awkward and heavy. He was looking at his lap, hand having dropped from his neck in favor of twisting a stray strand of fabric above his collarbone between his fingers. There was still a considerably saturated flush staining his face.

Finally Barnes cleared his throat. “Uh…well. After Steve found me and I got outta D.C., I tried my best to be a human. It was two years, but I…I was still so sure they’d catch me. Christ, it took me weeks to even _speak_ to someone? Thought it might all come crashin’ down at any moment. I figured, the fewer connections the better. No collateral or bargaining points if they did catch me. At the time, it was always when.”

Natasha knew how that felt. The paranoia, looking over your back every second, the ability to trust so alien. “Relatable.”

Barnes exhaled, sounding relieved. “Yeah, I figured you might get it.” He migrated to a stray thread on his outer layer, a soft-looking hoodie. He pulled it for about ten inches before the line broke and curled into his palm, regarding it before shaking his hand. Natasha watched the thread drift to the floor. “You - I mean, I assume you’ve had your fair share of -”

“Oof, yellow light.” Her lips twitched. “Careful where you’re going with that, soldier.”

“Christ, Romanoff, no! I’d never try and insinuate somethin’ like that, I was just -” He cut off when he saw her puckered, tilted pout, obviously trying to conceal a grin. “Aw, come on.”

“Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. “Couldn’t help it. Go on.”

He sighed. “I meant to say, I feel like you know where I’m comin’ from here. You been on the run more than a few times, I assume. You’re an enemy of the state -” She opened her mouth to protest here. He rolled his eyes. “A few states, sorry. Where do you ever feel human enough to…” he motioned in the air with his hand, trailing off. “To, uh…”

Oh, she couldn’t hide the smirk now. Relishing in his squirmy unease, she simply twined her fingers together under her chin and blinked innocently. “Enough to what?”

“Well, you know what. Nevermind.” He coughed. “This - this is gettin’ a little personal.”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m a pretty good listener if you can put the whole ‘international spy’ business in the back of your head. If you’re uncomfortable, just change the subject.”

“I - I mean, I…” the next words came out in a fast, nervous jumble. It was easy to tell he’d been holding onto them for awhile.

“It’s so hard to feel human when I have all this noise in my head. I can barely handle it on my best days. How can I put that on anyone else? Can barely trust myself.” His voice was very soft. Natasha’s breath caught. “So no, there ain’t anyone who needs contacting. There were a couple of uh, _flings_ , I guess, but no one stuck around long enough to find out who I really was. Didn’t let ‘em. That’s not…nobody else should be burdened with that, you know?” He looked up through messy, loose pieces of his hair at her. “S’not fair to tangle them up in any of my chaos.”

Her throat was tight with pity and understanding. There were very few people who understood this, what he was going through. She was one of them, sure, but… It would be selfish at the very least, she realized, to still hope for a miracle when it would have happened by now. Destructive and traumatic at worst. She needed to focus on her mission, despite the distractions he provided. There was still so much hurt within him and she wasn’t about to be responsible for any more.

She swallowed down her mixed emotions, mustering some cheer through her resignation. “No offense, but that doesn’t sound like the healthiest mindset.”

Barnes laughed mirthlessly. “One of the healthier habits I have, all things considering. What about you?”

“What about me?” she teased.

“I mean, how do you deal with it? Y’know, with someone special back home that you’re not being able to keep updated?”

Natasha twisted again. She laughed, keeping it as light as possible. “It helps not to have anybody like that. The tabloids ask me things like that all the time. What’s up with everyone assuming I have a line of suitors out there somewhere?”

He was looking at her with a strange, soft smile. “Sounds like I’m not the only one guilty of not givin’ myself enough credit.”

Natasha turned her face away. “Common sense is rare, but common enough that most people realize a traumatized, contentious assassin doesn’t outweigh allure.”

Barnes laughed. “You got plenty of allure, Red, trust me.”

Natasha did her best to ignore the nickname and compliment, clearing her throat awkwardly. She thought of her attempts to get Steve to open up, land a date, and found herself saying: “Well, it’s hard to find someone with similar life experience.”

“Jesus wept, you can say that again.” He snorted, then almost immediately sobered. “By the way, I wasn’t tryin’ to imply that you have more experi -…I mean I know you don’t _need_ no one - ”

She grinned. “Calm down. You were just being curious. I get it.”

He fidgeted a little.“Well, still -”

“Still nothing.” Natasha flapped her hand at him. “It’s fine. Jokes aside, I’m content with what I have now.” But here she trailed off, thinking of Matt and Clint and Maria and others (less important others, faceless agents and nondescript bodies and shaky memories that made her head buzz if she thought on them for too long). “Romance, commitment, love, sex. It complicates things.”

The middle of his forehead had pinched. “Complicates your job? Complicates being an Avenger?”

“Sure,” she said, “Among other things.” She tried to shrug the line of questioning off, but as she found herself staring back at him, her mouth began to move.

“The training in Department X encompassed quite a…diverse range of techniques. Combat or otherwise. They were cruel, but some were more cruel than others. The Red Room didn’t want skilled individuals. The Black Widow isn’t a _person_ , she’s a tool. The means don’t matter if there’s no person at the endgame. Sometimes it’s hard for me to…to separate the techniques from what I do now. That’s a whole can of worms that I can’t open on someone else. There’s…the possibility of hurting myself doesn’t matter much, but someone else -”

“That’s evil,” Barnes’s mouth was a tight, angry-looking grimace. From the looks of it, he seemed to understand what sort of techniques she was talking about. It wasn’t too hard to piece together what sort of difficulties it would cause any potential relationships. “The way you talk about her - the Widow, I mean - it’s like she’s a different person. How do you feel about separating yourself?”

“Hmm,” Natasha thought. “It’s true, in a way. The Widow _is_ a different woman. Sometimes I don’t even consider myself a woman, just to compartmentalize. I’m just Natasha.When I’m in my role as the Widow, I’m not _me_. I’m not Natasha. Even if they created Natasha too, I have at least a shred of identity to know the difference.” She glanced down at her hands, inhaling to calm her nerves. She hadn’t been this open in a long time. “The Widow is a _thing,_ a symbol, a mimic of someone. It’s the tool belt and the shell, the title that holds all the skills and experience together like glue. There’s nothing else in here, when it comes to being the Widow. And as much as I try, sometimes that bleeds into _me_.”

“How do you reconcile that?” Barnes asked, sounding almost desperate. “Those two states? How do you separate the good from the bad, start living how you want? As the person you want, not the one that was forced on you?”

_You can’t, not really. Not ever. Not completely. There’s no black and white when you start playing with someone’s mind like they did with us._

“Barnes,” Natasha said softly, “I think the answer you want to hear and the only answer I’m capable of giving you are very different things.”

His expression soured immediately, turned stormy with anger. The air even seemed to crackle between them now. Her heart sunk as she almost _felt_ any building rapport dwindling into awkward, distant fizzles. “Well. You shoulda warned me. Didn’t realize theshrink sessions started a day early,” he said tightly.

Something bitter and fiercely angry seized in her chest. It was a defensive, ugly thing that felt fooled. She’d just shared a bit of herself, handed it over on a platter with the trust that they both admitted was so hard to give up…and for what? For him to declare it useless because it wasn’t what he wanted to hear?

The past few weeks of stress and triggers and worrying caught up to her mouth. She let loose, pleased when he Barnes jumped as her fist slammed into the counter-top. His eyes were wide when a crack splintered around the crater in the marble.

“I am not that ‘after’ picture you want to believe exists.” Natasha practically growled. “What you want is for me to _lie_ to you. You want me to be a symbol. You want to hear that the Widow is evil, but that I managed to defeat that part of myself. You want to hear that I reigned all that trauma in like some righteous angel. You want to know that pain can be scrubbed free. You want it to be easy. You want it to be easy because you’re _scared_.” Her voice shook. “And you want to know something? I’m scared too. It’s been decades and I still wake up from dreams where I’ve had blood on my hands so long they’re wrinkled and pruned.”

Natasha shoved back from the counter. “You want platitudes shoved down your throat? You better find someone else to feed them to you.”

As the last of her words fell hoarsely from her lips, she realized that she’d barely taken a breath during that whole tirade. She inhaled sharply, chest rising and falling in a quick bursts. Barnes was staring at her,stupefied…and admiring?

His eyes were still wide, only slightly moreso than his mouth. It made him look as though his jaw was about to dangle off its hinge like some stupid Looney Tunes character.

They spoke at the same time.

“I’m really sorry -”

“Listen, I shouldn’t have -”

Barnes blinked owlishly, cheeks heating. “N-no, you really should have. You were right, about all of it.”

She shrugged and exhaled loudly, lifting hair from her face. “Even if it was, I could have been a little gentler about it.”

“Don’t wanna be crass, but…Romanoff, you _really_ don’t seem the type interested in gentle.” He flashed her awicked smirk.

That easy charm was the closest she’d seen him come to the man she had once known. Natasha’s eyebrows quirked in amusement. “Bold of you to talk like that to someone who has a say in how _gentle_ your treatment here is going to be.”

He leaned forward a little, smirk firmly in place. “I said you weren’t interested in being gentle. Didn’t say you were cruel.”

“That’s a mistake, then.” She laughed. “You know I’m going to meet with the therapist on your team after this visit, right?” Natasha pushed herself away from the counter, coming around the side to stand in front of his stool, hands on her hips. “I can easily influence their decision about whether you’re cleared for more independence. ”

He put his hand over his heart as she strode out the door. “You wouldn’t. I’ll be a perfect angel.”

“Oh, I seriously doubt that. And remember, Barnes: I’ve done worse for far less,” she teased, crossing her arms as the door slid shut between them, cutting off his laugh.

Almost immediately, she turned and rested her weight against the door, palm coming up to slap her forehead.

“What are you _doing,_ you idiot?” she hissed under her breath. She had just gotten done reminding herself not to fuck this up with unwelcome emotions, and there she was letting him flirt. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it, just the fact that he seemed to be getting more comfortable was a good sign, but still. She couldn’t let him just get away with it, she had to put her foot down. _And not do it back, no matter how harmless it seems,_ that angry little voice in her head reminded her. Huffing in frustration, Natasha pushed herself off the door and put as much distance between herself and that damn man as possible.

 

She hadn’t been lying: Siti’s hadn’t yet cleared him as stable enough to get a more private room, let alone leave the palace. It was the job of the mysterious individual who would act as both his psychiatrist and psychologist to determine that. They’d finally been moved to the same wing the team had set up in, apparently tucked into a quiet suite against the palace’s west-facing wall. Natasha knew nothing of the doctor, other than that they had arrived around the time she had, but because of a lack of adequate space in Siti’s lab, had to wait to join the observation and establish a safe therapy area.

She followed Siti’s directions to the level above Barnes’s quarters and found herself wandering down a long, brightly-lit corridor. It wasn’t atypical of the architecture of the palace, but at the end of the hall -

Natasha was startled to find that the office space had been installed with a façade, familiar in style. Iit was reminiscent of the PWA Moderne movement, something she was only familiar with through Steve’s passionate rants about the streamlined beauty of Depression-era architecture.

The stonework was mismatched in color and reminded her a little of the Lincoln Tunnel, while the frame around the door was curved and smooth. She hesitated a moment before rapping gently on the carved wooden door, wondering if Barnes would appreciate the work they’d put into making what they assumed would be a comfortable space for him. Or…if he’d find it condescending. At worst, perhaps it would be triggering.

The door cracked open and - and, well, Natasha was startled to discover the young man that answered. She’d seen him the day that Siti had pressed the button on Barnes’s microwave.

“Natasha Romanoff,” the young man greeted, adjusting his olive-green glasses before he sticking out his hand. His accent was unique, not what she had come to expect from Wakandans. “I am so very pleased to meet you.”

“Thanks,” Natasha responded. “And likewise. But I’m sorry, I was never told your name. How should I address you?”

He looked surprised for a moment before chuckling. “Bless that woman. Zaifa is brilliant, but sometimes too secretive for how much her memory has dulled. ” He smiled warmly,negating any perceived bite behind the words. “My name is Kwasi Abdulwajid. You can call me Dr. Kwasi, or Dr. Abdulwajid, or even just Kwasi. Whichever is most comfortable for you.”

Natasha thought for a moment. “Dr. Kwasi,” she began, noting the pleased grin he sported at the congeniality of the title. She looked him up and down. “I don’t mean to offend, but do you…anticipate any trouble building a rapport with Sergeant Barnes?”

Kwasi’s nose wrinkled. “Well, no more than any other difficult case or troubled patient.” A knowing brow hitched above the rim of his glasses, eyes twinkling. “Why, Miss Romanoff, does this have something to do with my age?”

She couldn’t help but relax a tiny amount at the teasing lilt of his voice and shrugged. “Just saying. You look like you’ve retweeted your fair share of ‘90s kids nostalgia’ memes.”

The young doctor laughed, head thrown back, and then swept his arm wide to open the door for her. She followed him into the first area of the suite, which seemed to function as a welcome/waiting room. It was painted in a warm sunset ombre of burnt orange to clay-red and decorated with several dark-stained wooden chairs and a beautifully patterned woven mat. One wall was lined with a floor to ceiling bookshelf, decorated with traditional African art, sculptures, and knick-knacks. Dotting the walls were a fewframed images of Afrofuturistic designs and portraits. A large kennel had been pushed below the angled walls in one corner. Interesting.

“Come, Miss Romanoff. We can continue this discussion in my office.”

Natasha followed him through one of the two door in the waiting room into a wider, similarly designed space. In one corner, a desk had been haphazardly pushed against the wall and was nearly hidden by a woven screen. The center of the room boasted several armchairs, a plush couch, oversized throw pillows, and a single rocking chair. Once again, the decorations were plentiful and warm, striking the perfect balance between cluttered and ‘no discernible personality’.

“You certainly have an eye for design,” Natasha said. She ran her finger over the sharp edge of a carved tiger figurine.

Kwasi chuckled and sunk into a high-backed armchair, already seeming at ease in a new environment. “If you can believe it, my first undergraduate degree had a focus in interior design. It became useful when I began researching counseling environments.”

“Here’s hoping Barnes finds it as soothing as you intended,” she said. “Have you met him yet?”

“No, and the fact is somewhat frustrating.” He steepled his fingers together and shook his head. “Our first session is in the morning. So far, I have only spoken to Dr. Siti and Prince T’Challa about him.” The young man shifted in his seat. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me a little about your perception of Sergeant Barnes. In the absence of Captain Rogers, I anticipate needing all the advice I can get so that I establish a strong foundation with him.”

Natasha looked him over. “Are you nervous?” Kwasi met her stare, face calm. He was very professional and she had trouble catching any hint of a crack in that demeanor.

“A little,” he admitted. “It was a wonder that I was even considered for this position. There was a moment in the process that I doubted my worth, but I was able to persevere. Honestly, Wakandan benefits and job security are worth giving it a try.”

“It sounds like you’re not a native Wakandan.”

He shook his head. “I was not born here, but my mother was. She met my father in Ghana on a humanitarian mission, and that is where I grew up. She died a few years ago and was the person who originally got me interested in counseling. I wanted to help people and the profession seemed an appropriate way to honor her.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Kwasi waved his hand dismissively. “Thank you, but it is no pain of mine any longer. I know she is with our ancestors enjoying her eternal peace.” He leaned backwards in his chair and pulled a sizable black canvas messenger back from behind a box she assumed was filled with files. Kwasi pulled a little notebook laptop out from one of its pockets and flicked it open, his face flickering immediately into a serious expression. “If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to talk about Sergeant Barnes now.”

“Sure,” Natasha shrugged. “I’ll give you as much information as I can.”

Kwasi hummed and began typing. “Great, I appreciate your help Agent Romanoff. Your help on this team is a gift to us and your friend. There will be many things he must adjust to during this program we’ve developed. Having someone who understands at least a fraction of the unique trauma he has experienced will be invaluable to his recovery.”

“I hope so,” Natasha said softly. “Which there had been a program like this back when I left the KGB.”

“Indeed. But I have a feeling that, while perhaps uncomfortable at times, participating in this process and helping Sergeant Barnes will give you some closure that you never received for yourself.”

Natasha nodded, although she wasn’t very hopeful.

Kwasi cleared his throat and then gestured to the chair opposite his desk. Natasha sat, uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again. She’d never been in this sort of setting before and found the unique nervousness unsettling. He wasn’t interrogating her, she reminded herself. She’d dealt with plenty of psychologists and experts before. This would be no different, no more difficult.

“So, let’s begin. I just want to ask a few simple background questions about the Sergeant, just to get a tentative base for our session tomorrow.” Kwasi tapped the return on his laptop a few times. “What can you tell me of his life before the war.”

( _As much as he remembers and has told me,_ she thought.)

There was no telling what they’d taken from him with their last wipe, but she got the idea that it had been a hell of a lot. If he himself couldn’t remember so many of his own secrets, desires, and fears, did that mean Natasha was the only one remaining who did? More importantly, was it wrong for her to feel a swell of fierce, protective pride at the possibility?

There had only been a few times they’d discussed such things over the years. Between the trauma of remembering the war, his death and the damage of brainwashing…memories hadn’t come exactly _easy_ for him. For either of them. As assassins and spies, they had been trained to use information as a bargaining piece, as currency. Together they had treated information as something precious and rare, to be handled carefully and respectfully, to be shared between the two of them. In a way, it was all she had left of him. There was a big part of her that was completely unwilling to give that up.

She cleared her throat, realizing that Kwasi was still waiting for an answer.

“Well, not much more than what anyone else knows.” Natasha lied. Her knowledge about him wasn’t relevant, anyway.“Steve has opened up about it a little. Steve said his mother, Mrs. Rogers, practically raised the both of them. Barnes had a younger sister, took care of her at some point.”

Kwasi tapped as she spoke, nodding along. “I see.How did you come to know Sergeant Barnes?”

Natasha’s hands twitched, threatening to twist into nervous knots. She suppressed the urge, keeping one palm on her thigh and the other tucked against her temple.

“Specifics like that are muddy at best,” she said, aiming for apologetic. It was true, mostly. “Steve introduced us, in a way. In D.C. There was a mission after I defected, in Odessa. He shot me. Other than that…not much has that clarity. From my own digging, it’s possible that we worked together under the KGB and Department X.”She shrugged. “I guess you could say my first formal meeting with Sergeant Barnes was during Steve and Tony’s blow-up. I let them get away, which is why I’m a fugitive at the moment.”

Kwasi’s lips twitched. “I have heard a slightly more aggressive account from the King.”

Of course he had. Natasha grinned. “Yeah, well. I was just taking care of Steve.”

Whatever he had just been typing was cut off mid-laugh. “Loyal enough to tase a monarch. I assume the two of you must be close.”

Natasha felt a sudden lump in her throat at the mention of Steve. _Close_. Close was putting it mildly. There were not a lot of words, Russian or otherwise, that could explain the connection she had with Steve. Or Sam. Or Clint, for that matter. She was someone who done terrible things, someone who spent the majority of her life killing and running and rinse/repeating all of it. She knew she’d been unfairly blessed to have such good people in her life. Her boys didn’t deserve the disservice of some inadequate description of how important they were to her.

And that description wasn’t for anyone else but herself. Kwasi couldn’t even have it, as much as a nagging part of her brain was telling her to share.

“We have as good a friendship as a closed-off ex-Russian operative can manage,” she said. Kwasi’s returning smile was kind and patient. “Most of what I know about Barnes is through Steve.”

The psychologist nodded. “Captain Rogers seems like a good friend. He was the one who asked you to come here, correct?”

“Mhm,” Natasha nodded. “I owed him.”

“You owed him? Seems quite the large task to request as a favor.”

“He’s saved my life on more than one occasion,” Natasha countered, trying not to bristle defensively. “There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do for Steve.”

Kwasi was smiling again, eyes soft. “It seems closed-off ex-Russian operates can manage quite a substantial friendship.” She waved her hand dismissively, feeling bashful. He had the grace not to laugh. “Regardless, like I said, this is a big commitment. You’re not close to Sergeant Barnes, as you said, so what prompted you to accept other than your loyalties?”

 _Ah, here it was,_ she thought. _The doubt that she could do anything the least bit selfless without motive._

“Is it so hard to believe that the Black Widow is capable of empathy?” she teased dryly. “Maybe I want to see a victim get the help he deserves.”

“As we all do,” the young man offered softly. “I did not mean to imply anything about your morals, Agent Romanoff.” He paused. “May I call you Natasha?”

The twist to her mouth was just as dry as her last quip. “Aren’t psychologists supposed to keep personal details to a minimum?”

“Between clients and professionals, yes.” He adjusted a little in his seat. “There’s a lot of ethical debate about how fine the line should be. Establishing solid rapport is extremely beneficial, so it is up to each clinician’s judgment. I understand and respect your trepidation. However, we’re just talking. If at any point you don’t like where a discussion is heading, you can just say the word.” He smiled. “Especially if you feel it is becoming too personal.”

“I don’t want it to be too personal,” Natasha admitted. “I’m not here for me.”

Kwasi regarded her for a long moment, before simply nodding.“Very well. Let us continue discussing Sergeant Barnes.”

“Good,” Natasha agreed. She settled back in the chair a little bit, relieved. “Sounds good.”

The young doctor cleared his throat. “Has he discussed his feelings towards the program and Dr. Siti’s team?”

Aside from a few smart comments about the whole situation, and some choice lines in anger when he’d first been brought out of cryo…Natasha shook her head. “We’re really not close enough for him to talk about things like that.” She paused here. “He does seem frustrated and stressed, but that seems like a pretty constant state for him.”

“Which is unfortunate,” Kwasi said thoughtfully as he transcribed her answer. With their angles and positions in the room she could barely see his fingers, but the staccato tik-a-tik of keys told her he typed rather fast. “But not unsurprising by any means. When one considers the implications that a medical or research facility holds for him, one should also marvel at the calm he has shown. Kwasi looked up at her, hands stilling. He rubbed his chin. “Especially without a solid support system at his convenience. What about friendships?”

Ah, there was that inevitable line of questioning. It made her anxious, but she knew that she could answer without playing any of the cards close to her chest.

(Er. Not that those cards were particularly close to her chest. Bad metaphor.)

“He and Steve are still as close as anything. I think the whole world knows that.” Natasha said. “I’ve heard some pretty interesting some stories about how he and Sam bicker like an old married couple from Steve.”

Kwasi mirrored her grin. “Sam…Wilson, the Avenger? The Falcon?”

“That’s him. About the closest human being to true _good_. He and Steve are - “ she trailed off, wondering what was in her allowances to discuss. The development in their relationship had been a recent one, at least since they’d gone into hiding. It was private, and thus irrelevant.“They’re very close.”

The room was quiet for several moments, filled only with the satisfying click-clack-click of his rapid-fire typing. She didn’t think he could gather that many notes from the admitted sparse information she’d given him, but evidently…

“Has Sergeant Barnes been hospitable? No aggression or outbursts?”

“Other than the first day when he was understandably, uh. Surprised to see me.” Natasha pursed her lips. “Last he’d seen, I was fighting on the opposite side. Even when I helped the two of them, I get why he wouldn’t trust me. There was a little bit of friction.”

“And now?”

Here, she paused. _And now?_ They’d come a long way, she thought. Natasha felt like she was beginning to crack open that exterior,

“He accepted coffee from me,” Natasha said thoughtfully.

Kwasi hummed thoughtfully. “And he drank it?” She nodded. “That’s significant. It seems as though you might have been successful in establishing some trust.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to take your thunder.”

He laughed quietly, wagging his finger at her. “I should not have put the idea of Wakandan job security in your head. Fortunately, I feel as though we have covered all our bases here and we may end this session before you successfully steal this position from me. Do you have any questions?”

Oh, she had a lot of questions. She suspected most of them were too existential for Kwasi to answer. Nevertheless, it gave her pause. He was being so genuine that she felt a pull to speak.

“Do you mind me asking…what’s my responsibility in all of this? My position hasn’t been made very clear. If you all knew me any better, you’d know that bringing me in for emotional support is laughable. Why did I have this meeting with you?” Natasha shifted in her seat. “Why am I getting all of these allowances? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

He continued typing, only paused to glance up at her once. Then, almost gently, he shut the sleek laptop and set it aside. “For the majority of the program, will be in communication with Dr. Siti and Princess Shuri regarding his progress, to make sure that he is ready for the next few steps in recovery. As you can imagine,it will likely be quite psychologically strenuous.” His finger came up to adjust the center of his glasses. “However, your experience and opinion will also be helpful when it comes to your perceptions of Sergeant Barnes’s behavior as well as the methodology we use. You do yourself too little credit, Agent Romanoff. You have much to contribute.”

Natasha swallowed uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. Anyway, I imagine once Madja and Nakia return with the book, you’ll need me for that too?”

Kwasi blinked at her but allowed the subject to pass. “We have translators, true. But I imagine there will also be concepts or practices we are unfamiliar with. This is where your experience comes in. This is all on the assumption that the book is found. It is possible that it has been moved among the remaining ranks of Hydra. My understanding is that it will either be in the place Majda is expecting, or at a location outside the continent. If that is the case, it’s the worst possible scenario: we will need your help tracking it down and retrieving it.”

“So what you’re saying is plan for the worst case scenario, right?” Natasha sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That’s pretty typical, considering my track record.”

 

She spent the next morning in Barnes’s quarters. Her feet were kicked up on the ottoma, ass sunk into the cloud-soft couch Shuri had delivered. Barnes himself was pacing back and forth nervously, waiting for the Dora Milaje detail that would escort him to Kwasi’s office. He passed her field of vision for possibly his hundredth lap. She rolled her eyes and stuck her foot out, catching his knee to get his attention.

Barnes whirled to look at her. He didn’t really seem able to _glare_ , what with all the wild nerves so obvious on his face.

 _That’s a first,_ she thought with a smirk.

“You need to relax.” Natasha said, tone balanced between soothing and firm. She didn’t bother to look up from the trashy gossip tabloid she was reading.It was several months old, having come in Wanda’s care package - but she was far enough behind on the latest Bachelorette rumors that she wasn’t going to complain.

“Kwasi’s a nice guy,” she said absent-mindedly as she flipped the page. She turned the magazine vertically for a better view of the double-spread _Abs for Days!_ beach article. “You’ll like him.”

“Easy for you to say. Nothing ever bothers Natasha Romanoff.” Now, he was able to manage a scowl, snapping at her. If she was being honest, the jab hurt a little…good thing she was great at being dishonest.

“Besides,” he continued, sounding more morose than angry. “That’s not the part I’m worried about.” He shot his arm out, gesturing towards the backpack. She’d delivered just a half hour earlier and now it was propped haphazardly against the wall by the door, untouched. Barnes glared at her properly now. “That was a lot to drop on me right before this session.”

Natasha finally looked over the magazine and popped her gum. “At least I dropped it on you.”

Barnes’s eyes narrowed. He was silent a moment before he pointed at the front cover. “Teddy wins that season and Francesca sends Jason home even though she gave him a rose during the extra fantasy-suite date.”

She gasped dramatically and sat up straight, tossing the tabloid aside “Dude, not cool. I have two whole seasons to catch up on!”

“Shouldn’t have become an international fugitive. You could have kept cable.” He rolled his shoulders and sat in his favored armchair. “Also, you shouldn’t have brought all this shit to traumatize me last-minute.”

“I didn’t give it back to traumatize you. I just thought you might want your My Secret Diary back as a discussion point.” She waved her hand. “And, you know, because it’s a bunch of precious mementos or whatever.”

Barnes made a motion like he wanted to cross his arms and then thought better of it. “You’re a spy. How do I know you haven’t read all of my shit?”

“That’s half the fun: you _don’t_ know.” Natasha popped another bubble and settled into a paragraph about the latest Kimye drama. “God, they’re a train wreck. Also just to level the playing field, I pinky-promise I didn’t read any of them.”

He ignored the outstretched digit, eyes still narrow. “Not a single word, huh?”

“Okay! I skimmed, like, half a sentence before I realized they were private,” Natasha admitted. He actually looked a little…touched.

_Abort abort! Too close! Fix immediately!_

“I put them back when I got to that part about Wilson and apple pie.” She studied her nails. “You have some adventurous fantasies for a white dude from the 40s.”

Barnes choked on air, spluttering away whatever feel-good fuzzies her honesty had caused.

“Respectfully, I’m just suggesting you talk some of those out with Dr. Kwasi.”

“JesusMarynJoseph,” he finally managed, palm against his forehead. It did nothing to hide how cherry-red his cheeks had gone. “I hate you.”

“Take a number.” She looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You’re probably around five-billion and four.”

Barnes sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, the motion comically on time as the quiet slide of the door to the room signaled visitors. Both turned their attention to it.

Dr. Siti strode into the room, flanked by two Dora Milaje. They were dressed in sharp, printed pantsuits, eyes as deadly serious as the other members Natasha had met.

Barnes jumped to his feet, bowing respectfully and offering the women his arm crossed over his chest. The two warriors exchanged looks and then mirrored his motion. Natasha set the tabloid aside and followed the motions before sticking her hand out to Siti.

“Morning,” she said. “I hope you’re well.”

Siti inclined her head. “Good morning, Natasha. I’m well - how was your meeting with Dr. Kwasi?”

Natasha glanced between Siti, her guards, and Bucky’s apprehensive face. “It was very productive. I don’t want to sound patronizing in the slightest, but I really think it’ll do you some good.” She said the last part to Barnes himself, who looked startled at her sincerity.

“W- Thanks, Romanoff.” He turned to the doctor. “Good morning. Are we leaving now?”

“Yes,” the old woman replied. She adjusted her grip on the tablet she’d brought with her, and motioned for Barnes to stick his arm out. “Let me just take this reading - put your thumb here, please…Thank you.”

The tablet lit up and gave a shrill beep when Barnes touched it, making him flinch. Natasha resisted the urge to put her hand on his back, a gesture so instinctual it felt like she was going against nature itself to keep her arm to her side.

“What’s that for?” Barnes asked as he pulled his hand back.

“Safety. Eventually, if you are cleared, your biological data will be run to Shuri’s security systems and you can have access to most areas.” He looked pleased. “I have faith in your progress. Now, shall we go?”

“Thank you, Dr. Siti,” Barnes replied. He turned towards Natasha and gave her a stiff little nod. For a moment, it looked as if he might say something.

“Good luck,” Natasha said, hoping to interrupt whatever was threatening to build in that quiet space between them. “Don’t disturb Kwasi too much. Keep it PG-13 for the youngsters.”

Siti rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh so loud it almost drowned out Barnes’s accompanying laugh.

“Always so supportive,” he teased.

He stopped by the door to consider his backpack, and after a brief pause he lifted it and slung it over his shoulder.

Then the four of them were gone, and Natasha was left standing alone.

 

 

Barnes was right, goddamn him and his spoilers. Francesca _does_ pick Teddy, much to Natasha’s utter chagrin. She nearly threw her spoon at the screen when the decision was made and Francesca accepted his proposal. She was curled up on the couch in her apartment, pint of ice-cream tucked between her legs, to continue her weekly tradition with Wanda. Distance be damned, they would have their trashing bonding experience.

“You idiot!” she seethed, doing her best to ignore Wanda’s delighted cackle on the video call. “He even told you he was conflicted about his feelings for his ex. Here you are anyway!”

“It is the best choice for her,” Wanda insisted, pausing to shovel a spoonful of creamy looking red velvet into her mouth. “Jason was not adventurous enough. He was unwilling to open up from the start and that was his downfall.”

Natasha opened and closed her hand like a mouth. “Blah blah. Communication is key to any functioning relationship, blah blah.”

“Teddy was not that bad. You just didn’t want him to get a happy ending because Francesca looks like that weapons tech you dated for a few weeks.”

“That’s not -” There was a shot as the credits rolled, zooming in on the bachelorette’s tan and demurely freckled face. She looked happy, Natasha had to admit. “Okay, well. She kind of _does_ , but that’s not the point!”

“What is, then? Why can you not allow these two people to be happy?” Wanda crowed dramatically.

“First, Teddy didn’t make the commitment until he realized he was going to lose. Second, Barnes spoiled me and told me he won, so I was _really_ hoping he wouldn’t just out of spite.”

The young witch sat up a little, adjusting her screen. “Wait, Nat. Are you trying to tell me that the Winter Soldier watches The Bachelorette?”

Natasha blinked. “He could have read it in a magazine or something…But he was oddly passionate about it.”

Wanda screeched excitedly, face beaming as she reached for her phone.

“Are you even allowed to tweet when you’re in deep cover? I don’t think Sam would be happy about you messing with all the security he set you guys up with.”

“I did not mess with it,” Wanda argues, tongue poking out of her mouth as her thumbs fly across the screen. “Vision did, and he checked to make sure our bases were sheltered.”

“Covered.”

“Thank you. One crying-laughing emoji or two?”

Natasha shot her a look as she switched the channel and the opening credits for a home improvement show began. “Don’t overdo it.”

Wanda nodded and hit the back button several times before setting her phone aside. “So, are you going to tell me -”

The sharp buzz Natasha had replaced Ceilia’s announcements with rang through the apartment, startling her. Wanda looked confused as well, and Natasha apologetically signed off before she vaulted over the back of the couch and headed towards the door. She hadn’t really been anticipating anyone seeing her on her Friday-night pajama best, but c’est la vie.

“Who is it, C?” Natasha asked, adjusting her hair and sweatshirt in the hall mirror.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Ceilia replied immediately, voice even.

Natasha’s stomach twisted. She found herself adjusting her hair in the mirror, once more, and was in the middle of distractedly brushing down her thighs when she realized _what_ she was doing.

 _Stop acting like a silly child, you idiot,_ she snapped internally, and motioned for Ceilia to open the door.

Barnes stood there, shoulders nearly the width of her doorframe and grinning madly. He was wearing the same thing she’d seen him in earlier, a long-sleeved blue shirt and jeans. He also looked relatively out together, so Natasha figured she wasn’t witnessing the tail-end of a fanatical escape from the labs on his end.

“Uh, hey?” she glanced down at the watch on her wrist. “What are you doing here so late?”

He was still grinning maniacally. Natasha realized there was a manilla folder caught between his bicep and ribs, held tight by his arm. He made no other move.

Nervously, she shifted a little. “If this is going to be some sort of weird YouTube horror short, can you at least give me a warning before -”

“Kwasi cleared me.” He said, words pouring out so fast she barely caught them.

Natasha settled a little, moving her weight to one side and crossing her arms. “Wow. No offense, but that was way faster than I thought it would be.”

Barnes mirrored her stance, tapping his foot with what seemed to be nervous energy. “Me too. And he said that - “ he paused, face falling a little. The expression that took over was strange and unreadable. “He said that you…you gave me a good recommendation. A great one, actually.”

Her mouth went dry. Feebily, she said: “Great, someone else spreading rumors that I have a heart.”

That goddamn smirk again. “I know you think you’re foolin’ people, Red, but you really aren’t.”

Natasha huffed, feeling uncomfortable. The apartment was big and he was still relatively out of her personal space, but it still felt too intimate like this. “Listen, -”

She didn’t get a chance to finish. Barnes had taken a step forward, crossing the threshold of her living area. She took a step back out of instinct, hackles raising as her instincts kicked in and she prepared to bolt. If he was going to do this now, she needed time to formulate a strategy to take him down and manage to warn the rest of them and…oh.

 _Oh,_ she thought, face suddenly pressed into warm muscle and soft cotton that smelled achingly familiar. His arm had slung over her, hooked around the tops of her shoulders, awkwardly pulling her into a hug. Barnes’s jaw brushed the side of her head and nothing else between them touched except her forehead and his chest, but it felt - it felt -

“I’m not the hugging type,” she said, hating that her voice sounded so small. Her hands, of their own traitorous accord, slid up to pat him between the shoulders. She kept it light and disconnected, doing her best not to sink into the familiar sensation. “So, uh…let’s cut this fuzz-fest short.”

Barnes shook his head, jostling her a little with the motion. She’d forgotten, somehow, how big he was like this. In combat it was easy - she could narrow it down to weight and height and physics, strategize to use her strengths against the solid bulk challenge he presented. This was different, though. This was different and the same. She cherished it just as much as she feared it, hated it.

“Nuh-uh. You can go back to being a bristly gremlin after we’re done here. I get to say when we’re done here, though.”

Natasha’s arms dropped to her sides. She hoped he couldn’t see how tightly her fists were clenched. “Don’t you know how to read a situation, Barnes?”

(Well shit, she felt that familiar twitch of his jaw against her temple. He was grinning, the little shit.)

“You keep calling me an idiot and then expect me to _read a situation_.” He drawled teasingly. “Didn’t even gimme a safe word or nothin’.”

( _Oh_ , she thought again, mind suddenly blank. _Oh fuck._ )

Natasha squirmed back, suddenly desperate for air.She ducked under his arm and took a step back, out of his immediate reach. Christ, she hoped her face wasn’t nearly as warm as it felt.

By the smirk on his face, it was.

“Hey,” he said, voice suddenly very serious. When she finally had the courage to look him in the eye, his mouth was pursed with worry. He held his hands up between them, eyebrows knitting together. “Natasha, I’m sorry. I thought we were still joking around. My bad.”

“It’s -” She dragged her eyes away and rubbed the heel of her hand into her forehead. “It’s fine, it’s not…I’m not used to that, is all.” She waved her hand, embarrassed. “Just, y’know. That.”

Something softened in his gaze then, sheepish and almost afraid. “I understand, trust me. I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what? You’re the one that did all the mental gymnastics.”

He chuckled. “Yeah but you - without those things in my backpack, I wouldn’t have made the progress I did. Kwasi really trusts your opinion, and you must have made an impression too. You must have said some really nice shit about me.” Here, his eyebrows waggled, and she didn’t have the strength to resist the urge to push him by the shoulder.

“Next time I won’t make that mistake. I’ll just tell the whole team how you’re considering taking over Switzerland and kidnapping puppies and stealing candy from cute little kids.”

Barnes curled his fingers and lowered his eyebrows comically. “ _Muahaha_.”

“Christ,” she laughed. “Get in here. Shuri had a few seasons of the Wakandan equivalent of our mutually favorite TV show sent over.”

His villain act dropped immediately, shoulders straight again.

“It’s just an offer - you don’t have to feel obligated to -” Natasha scrambled to rectify the situation. “I thought we could do a celebratory thing, I have a few beers made for mutant biology that I was going to try and I - I mean we could toast but there’s really no obligation on your end so -”

“Natasha,” Barnes interrupted. He caught her elbow, fingers curling gently around the bone. It forced her to pause and take a breath. “Red. Calm the fuck down. I would be honored to watch trashy TV and drink questionable alcohol with you. Just didn’t expect it, is all. You didn’t insult me or anything.”

“I just-”

“I know,” he laughed. His hand slid up her arm to her shoulder. There was nothing sensual about the movement at all, but she still found herself shivering as she was navigated towards the couch. “It’s weird having friends again, I get that it makes you…weird. C’mon, set up the first episode while I find those drinks. We can celebrate.”

 _Friends_ , Natasha thought as she watched him meander over to her kitchen and crack the refrigerator open. He found what he was looking for along with a plate of iced cookies Shuri had sent over that afternoon. When he kicked the door closed and raised the cans to her triumphantly, grinning bright as the stupid sun, she realized how absolutely, incredibly, irrevocably she had just fucked up.

The voice in her ear sounded suspiciously like Fury when it growled: _Goddammit, Romanoff._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha doesn't really follow her own advice, but continues to dish it out. (Reminder just in case you missed it: chapter 5 was also recently posted)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, we're really barreling full-steam towards the end faster than I thought. With this chapter I want to remind you to please MIND THE WARNINGS if you are particularly sensitive to discussions of difficult topics. Otherwise, enjoy.

“We’ll survive, you and I.”

                                                     - F. Scott Fizgerald, from _More Than Just a House, 1933_

* * *

 

The weight on his shoulders hadn’t lifted after that first session, but he had to admit that it sure seemed a helluva lot easier to carry.

He didn’t exactly have a habit of trusting every doctor and psychologist he ran into - just didn’t make sense. Any remaining trust had been absolutely destroyed after Zemo’s infiltration of that doomed session in Bucharest. So it may have hurt his pride a little to admit that Natasha had been right. Kwasi was kind, and Barnes did like him. The young psychologist was comforting to be around in a way that reminded him of Wilson’s easy going attitude (no matter how irritating it could be at times), his unconditional support and kindness. Kwasi had seemingly endless patience, and that was despite the fact that Bucky had been…well. He’d been admittedly just a _little_ bit of an asshole. If he was honest, the aggressive act he’d put on had been test for the young doctor, born mostly our of nerves and fear. Doctors and scientists had been behind a majority of the trauma he’d dealt with, so he really didn’t feel that trepidation about putting his trust in another was unfair. Giving anyone the power of getting inside his head, good intentions or not, was how he’d ended up in this whole mess in the first place. He wondered, sometimes, whether the average person would understand if he was given the opportunity to explain.

So, yeah. Kwasi clearing him for a few more freedoms and privileges was pretty spectacular. As nice and respectful as Siti and her team had been, he was really looking forward to getting out of that goddamn glass box, and into somewhere more accommodating. Somewhere private, where he didn’t feel like he was being watched 24/7. True, the teams of scientists and doctors had only bothered him maybe once or twice a day to run tests or take notes on his progress, but it had started giving him that unpleasant buzz in the back of his skull. He’d started getting paranoid.

(Romanoff turning up silent as death hadn’t really helped that either, if he was still being honest.)

Even better, Kwasi had made it clear that, when T’Challa was next available, they could begin a conversation about Bucky’s freedoms and responsibilities as a guest to the nation. The palace and the city had been relatively opened to him thanks to the feedback from his screening, but he knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as walking out the door and living his life again. It never was.

Bucky frowned up at the ceiling of his new bedroom, thoughtfully considering the patterned tile. It was nearly two in the morning and he’d been laying in the same position _(fingers folded across his chest, thumbs twirling, and his knees pulled towards his stomach)_ for the last few hours, unable to catch each wave of exhaustion to pull him under the current of sleep. Part of the agreement he had come to with the doctor was giving him a fair amount of anxiety.

Natasha was an odd choice, in his opinion. He got that the whole reason that she was in Wakanda was that she had similar experience, but, and he meant this in the nicest way possible, she didn’t exactly come across as the ‘compassionate guardian’ sort. Hell, one of the Dora Milaje made more sense and they barely acknowledged his existence at the best of times. He might’ve preferred one of the stoic, quiet warriors to Natasha’s intense, cutting wit. Every word out of her mouth made him feel like she was laughing at him, even if he wasn’t talking about something else. She was sharp and severe in a way that confused him when it was coupled with dry humor. At times she was completely rigid, withdrawn into herself with almost caustic inflexibility. She was harsh; she could harness a terrifying sort of intimidation he never could. He had at least half a foot and definitely more than a hundred pounds on her…and yet there were more than a few instances where just a chilling, pointed look from her poison-green eyes had him feeling like a goddamn speck of dust.

Bucky’s frown deepened. He realized the way that he tended to think about Natasha was unkind, considering how much patience she had shown him. It made him sound like he hated her guts. Sure, she was intense and calculating (and a whole other slew of adjectives he was too scared to say to her face), but he’d also seen enough compassion from her to rival Sam. She behaved in soft, sisterly ways around Shuri. She spoke about Sam and Steve and her other friends back home (Jess and Clint and Matt and a nameless others that slipped his memory). She had adopted a _cat_ who she had trained as a therapy animal. She volunteered, for fuck’s sake.

Bucky wondered which label she would be more insulted at: _poisonous,_ or _soft-hearted_.

Unbidden, her raspy laugh bounced around in his skull. _“At least I’m not soft-headed,”_ she’d probably fire back tartly, aiming him with one of those disarming smirks.

For reasons that he felt hesitant to explore, that particular imaginary conversation had him falling asleep with a stupid grin on his face.

 

_He dreams, as usual._

_They are not exceptionally pleasant, as usual._

_A mission in London: he watches his target through a recon scope. The target is a tall, lanky brunette scientist who had recently attempted to peddle Department X-related confidential research on the information market. Normally, the KGB wouldn’t bother sending their best to deal with someone so unimportant: data breaches were common, in the grand scheme of things._

_But sometimes, they wanted to send a message. Today, the Winter Soldier is the messenger. His message is the .308 round in the rifle._

_His orders are to eliminate the target, make sure he is observed at the scene, and then make his exit._

_Robotically he lines up his shot, disturbingly effortless, and tightens his finger on the trigger. It plays out in front of him, a brief glimpse into the future: perfect trajectory, a smooth journey through the stale summer air, the bullet lodged precisely into his target’s skull. Silent and quick; he’s done it hundreds of times before._

_He preemptively shifts his positioning to accommodate for the recoil, just in case he needs to take another shot (he’s never had to). As his finger squeezes, a hand falls on his shoulder. He stiffens, but does not move focus from the scope._

_“Wait.”_

_A filled double-decker bus zips by, going well over the speed limit for such a crowded city street. He curses under his breath, lets out the breath in his lungs - and the bullet cuts through the bus’s exhaust fumes to find its new home._

_“Dramatic,” says the same voice, the person behind him, and it sounds amused. In the same instant,the hand is gone. “You’re lucky it was a good shot.”_

_“I always complete missions to standard, as ordered,” the Soldier says dully. He rolls his shoulders and turns to look back and -_

 

_The dream shifts, fades as if vanished away by a particularly heavy London fog._

 

_Before: he sits on the ramshackle railing of Steve’s apartment. Because it is a dream the information that this is only a few weeks before Steve’s ma passes comes to him suddenly._

_“Hey,” he says, “it’ll be okay.”_

_Beside him, Steve sniffles a little, and he wipes away a sour look and a few salty tears. Between his bony fingers is a bowl of watermelon, treat from compassionate neighbors that pity his situation. Bucky watches as he plucks a piece from the bowl between frail fingers._

_He sneaks a wedge, too. There are a few kids kicking around an old ball in the dirt in the desert-dry courtyard behind the apartment block, and Bucky watches them, chewing thoughtfully._

_“It won’t be,” Steve finally says. A long moment has passed, but his voice is still wavering, wet with unshed tears that Bucky knows won’t fall until he’s gone home. “It really won’t be Buck. But I appreciate you tryin’, pal.”_

_Bucky frowns. “Even if it don’t end up okay, you got people to help you through it still.” He puts his hand on Steve’s fragile shoulder and squeezes. “That’s what we’re here for. No shame in accepting help, don’t be such a stubborn martyr.”_

 

It’s the first dream in a long time to leave a pleasant warmth in Bucky’s chest when he wakes.

 

_Later:_

Natasha was willing to acknowledge the fact that, against all external and internal advice, she had managed to dig herself into a very, very deep hole. She’d never done very well staying out of trouble, but this time was different. This time she’d gone looking for it. Maybe she’d been blinded by the arrogant belief that she could handle the challenge, as long as she could stop herself from complicating the whole thing. Maybe she was using Barnes as some symbol of her past, and completing this mission would be proof that she could overcome it. Either way, she’d miscalculated. Badly.

Her first mistake was more time with him than was strictly necessary. Her second was bridging professional into casual. Her third? Well…

“You know,” Shuri popped the electric-blue gum she’d nicked from Natasha’s purse stash. “You know you didn’t have to let him crash here, right? We had a place ready for him and everything.”

They were both standing in Natasha’s living room over the super soldier snoring away on the couch.

“I know,” the redhead hissed, shooting Shuri a half-hearted glare before sighing. He just looked so much like a sad puppy when I tried to get him to leave. He spent _eight_ decades in a glorified ice bath. The least I can do is not kick him out. Let him have a little normal human interaction.”

“ _Normal_ human _interaction_ , huh? Sure, Jan.” Shuri snickered as she stressed the words. “It just seems so miraculous that a paranoid former prisoner of war could be comfortable enough to sleep in an unfamiliar place.”

“Well,” Natasha squirmed a little. “The apartment’s… not exactly unfamiliar to him.”

Shuri’s eyebrows had nearly disappeared into her hairline. “Ew, dude. I don’t want any dirty details.”

“There are no dirty details!” Natasha whisper-yelled. “We’ve just been binging that show you sent me. The Bachelor one.”

Despite actually telling the _truth_ for once, Shuri only sucked her teeth suspiciously at the declaration. “Whatever, Nat.” She pointed her finger between Natasha and Barnes’s unconscious bulk. “Something else is going on here that you’re not telling me. I _will_ get the truth out of you one day.”

 _Christ_ , Natasha thought, an audible sigh to punctuate her frustration, _you probably will._

She brushed past the princess into the kitchen, cracking open the fridge. “You want anything for breakfast?” she asked, hoping that Shuri would take the hint and give Natasha an escape from this particular subject.

There was a long silence from the living room; for a moment Natasha thought that she hadn’t been heard, hesitant to raise her voice any louder. She twisted to glance around the edge of the refrigerator door and found that Shuri was still staring down at Barnes’s peacefully still form - only now there was a secretive, fond smile softening her face.

Natasha let her have that private moment before she whistled lowly, waving her hand for attention. The girl’s eyes snapped up and she padded over, glancing past Natasha into her mostly empty fridge.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “What did you say?”

Natasha held up an almost-empty carton of eggs in response, to which the teenager made a face.

“Nah, dude. I have a feeling you have been making boring-ass meals the whole time you’ve been here. Today is special, so I’m taking you to get some real food.”

Her eyebrows drifted up, slow and amused. “Today is a special day?”

The teenager grinned, flattening one palm against her chest dramatically. “You asked for a tour of my labs and I am here to deliver on that promise! I always make good on promises,” she added as an aside, eyes glittering teasingly. “Although if you want to make it a private affair and wake your boy-toy up, I’ll give you some recommendations -”

“Shut up,” Natasha grumbled. She had to admit, the idea of getting her hands on some high-tech Wakandan weapon upgrades was sounding very seductive. “What are we going to do with sleeping beauty, anyway?”

There was an interesting noise from the couch-lump, and they both desperately held back laughter as Barnes shifted onto his other side and the furniture groaned with impeccable comedic timing at his redistributing weight.

“I have got enough say in his permissions to get him access to other things in the palace,” Shuri answered once she’d finished controlling her near-outburst. “That includes my lab. I am working on some dangerous projects, but I’d like to see anyone stop me from taking the opportunity to shock an old geezer with the latest tech.”

Natasha grinned at her. “Barnes is a science fiction nerd, you know. You might need to prepare for a heart attack - and a lot of questions.”

Shuri had been shrugging into her smart, hot-pink leather jacket. When Natasha spoke, she paused. “He’s…a sci-fi nerd?” The girl’s dark, assessing eyes narrowed. “Weird thing to know about an acquaintance.”

Natasha’s grin faltered; she caught it before it could slip entirely. She shrugged, hiding the narrowed angle of nervous posture, and leaned across the counter on her elbow. “Steve told me. You wouldn’t believe the embarrassing stuff I know. Apparently, the night before Barnes shipped out, they went to this old-timey technology expo. Something to do with Stark’s latest invention.”

The princess frowned. “I didn’t know Tony Stark was that old.”

Oh, but Natasha could just picture the look of abject, insulted horror on Tony’s face at the insinuation he was over the age of 40 (even if it was true). She couldn’t hold in the burst of laughter that bubbled up and it escaped her mouth, hand coming up to catch the noise just a second too late.

There was a rustle from the living room followed by an annoyed grunt and the sound of shifting blankets. Suddenly, the top-half of Barnes’s face peeked over the back of the couch. His eyes squinted against the early morning light, hair an absolute disaster. It was sticking out in about a hundred different directions, thanks to having escaped the loose knot he’d tamed it into before nodding off.

Natasha wasn’t the ‘ _softly waxing poetic_ ’ type, but a more eloquent person might have written prose about how unfairly good he looked in the morning. In fact, he looked more confused than sleep-deprived. His right fist came up to rub at his eyes, and then they were suddenly aimed straight at Natasha.

 _I miss this_ , she thought suddenly, stupidly. She squashed down whatever emotions were about to follow, unwilling to let them rise to the surface.

“Hey, Red. Why’d you turn off the show?” Barnes’s voice was sleep-rough and soft. Coupled with his bleary eyes and the red lines pressed into his temple from the couch folds, she wondered how anyone could find him threatening. _Stupid cherub cheeks and bone structure._ He turned a little as he stretched, blinking when he noticed Shuri.

“Sup, old man,” she chirped, smirking.

Barnes’s eyebrows furrowed. He glanced around the room, taking in the white-gold morning light and the silly knick-knack analog clock sitting on the table by the door- Natasha had found it at the market. It’d been too cute to pass up.

Barnes yawned. “Oh. I fell asleep here again, huh?”

( _Again?_ Shuri’s eyebrows seemed to screech as they ascended into the stratosphere.)

“Yes,” Natasha answered slowly and carefully. She didn’t break her glare with Shuri as she spoke. “What’s that show called again?”

“It’s like…Love for All or something similar, once you translate it.” Shuri said dismissively. She flapped her hand and then practically skipped over to the couch. “You should get up, by the way. We have a big day planned.”

“Come on, Shuri,” Natasha chided. “You know senior citizens need their rest.”

Barnes lifted his head, leveling her with an unamused stare. “Very clever. I do think I earned some more quality in dream land, though.”

Shuri shrugged and picked at her nails, looking unbothered. “I mean if you want to miss the tour today, I guess Natasha will just have all the fun.”

“I’m a virgin to this whole _lab access permission_ thing.” Natasha said just as dryly. “I’ve only ever _broke_ _into_ Stark’s lab before.”

During this exchange Barnes seemed to be waking up more and more. Soon, she could see the realization physically dawn on him. His shoulders rolled back and he leaned forward a bit, eyes shining with interest. “Now hold on just a second -”

“Oh no no no,” the princess tutted. Her hands were outstretched as if to keep Barnes from getting up. “If you’re not feeling like your hip is up to it, we understand.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agreed. “We wouldn’t even think of pushing you.”

Barnes kicked off the blanket around his legs and leapt gracefully over the back of the couch. Shuri and Natasha stepped aside as he hurried past, clearly trying not to seem too eager.

“No, I’m up for it,” he insisted. His hip pressed against the end table by the door for balance while he retrieved his boots.

“Should we get him velcro?” Natasha stage-whispered as he struggled to untie the laces with one hand. He turned and met her grin with narrowed eyes. “No disrespect intended.”

“Red,” he mumbled. “You think its funny to disrespect a vet, huh?”

Natasha shook her head innocently, flashing him a mock salute. “Sir, no sir.”

 

 

The elevator ride down was uneventful. They stood in a line, Shuri on Barnes’s left so she could help him balance a box of pastries and breakfast leftovers. Natasha, on his right, held a carry-out container of hot coffee, sugar, and reusable cups.

Shuri kept sneaking a hand under the box of donuts to pinch Barnes’s elbow, and he retaliated by jostling her gently with his shoulder, knocking her off balance each time. Other than their antics the ride was smooth.

“We’re getting sugar-free syrup next time,” Natasha said - receiving two similarly evil grins in response.

Barnes gave her a once-over and then turned to Shuri, whispering, “Looks like the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. Maybe she’ll be less grumpy by the second cup.”

“Doubt it,” the princess said back. The two of them had just begun snickering at her expense when the elevator reached a smooth stop.

A robotic voice announced the floor. They must have been deep below the surface, as it’d gotten considerably colder the further down they traveled. With a _ping!_ the elevator door slid back into its frame. Shuri was the first to step out, leading them a few feet into a brightly lit hallway. Dark stone moulding came as high as Natasha’s knees before transitioning into smooth, transparent glass. Carvings and decorations lined the hollow windows, and beyond them she could make out a vast darkness. A cave, a formation in the ground that overlooked the vibranium mines below them. Natasha counted - every 15 seconds, a chest-rumbling noise vibrated below their feet, accompanied by the slightly louder sound of metal sliding apart and together.

“The mining devices,” Shuri explained. She waved Natasha closer to the window, pointing with a skinny finger somewhere to their left. She saw a track suspended in the air by meager-looking supports.On Natasha’s 15 second mark a sleek, silent cart of some kind emerged from one end of the cave’s darkness and shot across the track. Pylons attached to the track lit the cave dimly as the cart passed.

“Wow,” said Barnes from behind Natasha’s shoulder. “That the transport system for the mines?”

“Yep!” Shuri replied, nonplussed by the incredible technological display. “But if you think _that’s_ impressive, just you wait.”

They were led further down the hallway, passing several brightly lit displays until they came to a door. Shuri waved her wrist in front of it and it slid upwards, revealing the mouth of a large, cylindrical room before them.

It looked like something out of a Star Trek nerd’s wet dream.

As if on cue with her thoughts, Barnes drew a sharp intake of air. He fumbled to drop the bag of breakfast goodies safely to the floor.

“Holy _. Shit_.” He breathed, falling into stride with Shuri as he took in the technology around them. Natasha glanced over her shoulder, annoyed with herself for how endearing she found his expression. “This place makes Stark look like a monkey with a wrench.”

Natasha snickered, following the two of them as they did a quick lap of the room. “Stark _is_ a monkey with a wrench,” she replied dryly, depositing the coffee as far from any precious-looking machinery as possible.

Barnes turned to look at her and grinned, but his attention was quickly drawn elsewhere. “Shuri, this place is _amazing_. Holy shit!” he repeated.

“You said that already,” the princess pointed out. She sounded unaffected, but Natasha could see the pride spreading over her face.She was clearly excited for someone she admired to acknowledge and compliment all her hard work. “If you want to see anything in particular, let me know. I have a lot of projects going at once.” She twisted one of her loose braids around her finger shyly. “I, uh. Yeah. Welcome to my lab.”

Barnes moved slowly between the tables and stations and displays, fingers gliding close to things but never touching. He kept muttering little phrases of astonishment and fascination as he went, praising Shuri’s intelligence and determination in between. Natasha followed at a distance. She was equally impressed, but honestly more interested in the genuine curiosity coming off of Barnes.

“This for T’Challa?” he asked at once point, fingers of his right hand gliding appreciatively towards a smooth, polished display stand. Balanced in the center was what looked to be a half-dozen of gold tipped claws. They looked like the retractable ones on T’Challa’s suit, only shinier - they glittered delicately under the lab’s harsh white lighting.

“Those are just some upgrades I’ve been fiddling with,” Shuri confirmed. She moved to the stand and lifted the tips in her palm, revealing they were connected to several wrapped fiber optic cables attached to invisible ports in the base of each claw. “I’m trying to get them to cycle between physical effects - stun, fatigue, kinetic, all that. I’m just having some trouble syncing them up with his suit’s functionality. Some bad coding left over from the first try, I think.”

Natasha watched the princess turn them over in her hand several times, finally allowing her attention to be drawn what hung on the shelving behind the display. It looked like an almost-complete skeleton, like T’Challa’s suit, vibranium-spun and -

“Whoa,” Natasha muttered, watching purple waves of energy spread under her fingers when she reached out to test the material between her fingers. “What -”

“Kinetic functionality. Hopefully I’ll be done with that piece soon. I want to surprise T with it.” Shuri rocked back and forth on her heels, hair bouncing off her shoulders. “I developed an auxiliary vibranium weave technology independent of the lined structure of the suit -” she rambled on.

Natasha tried very hard not to zone out. She was not successful.

“ - Against the force, containing it.” Shuri finished. “So, effectively, it can store kinetic energy in the vibranium. Pretty soon, I’ll have full functionality completed and the rest of the suit finished.”

“So…full functionality means what, exactly?” Natasha pressed, skating her fingers down the fabric.

Shuri’s answering grin was shark-like, sharp and proud. “High-powered localized dynamic energy discharge.”

Barnes whistled.

“Say someone smashes T with the _heaviest_ vehicle imaginable,” the girl babbled excitedly, “Not only can he take the hit with minimal consequence, he can divert the energy after the suit has stored it. He can throw a punch or kick or whatever he wants with an equal amount of force.”

 _Well now,_ she thought with a purr. _Wouldn’t that come in handy during missions?_ Just take a few punches and let the energy build up. Discharge it at her convenience.

“That’s crazy, Shuri.” Natasha said. “Best things Stark’s come up with lately is that Rock’em Sock’em robot he used to throw down with Bruce. Second best, a flashy-gold lined suit for the web kid.” She paused. “Hm. Now that I think about it…Isn’t it pretty narcissistic of him to put his color scheme on another person?”

“Web kid,” Shuri wondered out-loud, before connecting the dots. “Oh! Oh!” Her hands came up to press against her cheeks. “The lanky white kid - Spider-Man? I gotta know how he does that.”

Barnes chuckled when she mimed the little motions with her wrists. “What’s his name, again? Paul?”

“Peter,” Natasha confirmed. “Cute kid. He hangs out with Kate, Clint’s protege. You’d like them, Shuri. You’re all big -”

“Nerds?” Barnes offered, sounding much closer than he had a second ago. “What kind of hero name is Spider-Man, anyway?”

Natasha snorted. “Okay, Winter Soldier, James _Bucky_ Barnes, former associate to _Captain America._ Tell me more about odd names.”

Barnes blinked at her. Shuri balanced the silence between them for a few moments before ending the spell, clapping her hands loudly. She squeezed between them, bony elbow catching Natasha in the hip. It definitely felt intentional. From the looks of Barnes’s matching grimace, Shuri had sent them both a warning to behave.

“Come over here,” she said, bounding away towards another testing area. Natasha and Barnes regarded each other for a moment, eyebrows mutually raised, before Natasha gave in and stepped around him.

<“ _Child_ ,” _> _ she muttered under her breath. There was a nudge against her shoulder and then a voice close to her ear:

< _“Takes one to know one,” > _Barnes responded. His accent had never been impeccable, and Natasha could pick him out as American in a room full of people, but it was good enough to send a shiver down her spine.

Eager to escape his space, Natasha moved briskly after the princess, who had stopped in front of a long white table. There were a variety of tools spread messily over the counter - some of them recognizable, some looking as if they could be from a sci-fi film set.

Shuri spread her hands dramatically, framing the two metallic domes displayed on the table. One was larger than the other, more harshly elliptical than its twin, almost as if it had been stretched out. The shorter of the two had a rounded cap that only as high as Natasha’s hip.

There was a moment of silence before Barnes spoke up. “So, uh. What are they? Armor pieces, or parts of some machine?”

Natasha snickered.

“No, Bucky,” Shuri sighed. “And if you insult my inventions again you won’t get yours.”

His eyebrow quirked. “Mine?”

The princess nodded, and then turned suddenly shy. “These…these are - Well, I made them. Uh, I made these for you guys.” Shuri ducked her head, fumbling with the heavy bracelet on her wrist. The spheres clinked together almost musically as she tapped at them, and then the shorter dome began to disappear into a slit in the table. It revealed a sheet of smooth fabric, upon which laid -

“Oh hell yes,” Natasha breathed. Without thinking, her fingers closed the distance, reaching out before the cover had even slid back all the way.

Nestled in a neat line like dangerous, terrible little soldiers, were several tactical devices. Weaponry, each decorated with a streak of red vibranium. Natasha’s index finger brushed over what looked like round pellets, similarly shaped to the beads on Shuri’s wrist. There were a handful of them, airbrushed in dark metal and pulsing dimly with blue light. Beside them rested a rectangular device set on a thin pole and mounted around a mannequin wrist. The intricate metalwork and glowing circuitry rested being a tiny pane of translucent glass-like material, attached to a Kevlar-like ballistic weave that felt resilient to the touch.

“It’s a wrist-mounted projectile. Those are the ammunition,” Shuri explained, an odd mix of nerves and pride in her voice. She watched as Natasha picked the weapon up and tested it against her wrist. It was a perfect fit.

“I wanted to make something that could be useful in a quick exchange, something that you can hide easily, carry with you. Buy you a little time, rather than end a conflict.” Shuri babbled, rocking on her feet excitedly. She clearly had put a lot of thought into the weapon. “I know the electrified weapon thing is kinda your thing, so the pellets - they expand and attach upon contact, and then deliver a nonlethal shock.”

She pointed to a pair of cylindrical shapes resting next to the pellets. They looked like baton handles, but were long enough that when Natasha picked them up, they rested in her smaller-than-average palms comfortably. They felt like a natural extension of her reach.

“Press your thumb into the space there, on the side - yeah, there.” Shuri explained. Natasha did as instructed and watched as a rod of metal shot out of each baton. The rod split at the end into two delicately sharp prongs, and when Natasha pressed her thumb into the button again, a spark of energy crawled up the length. The rod had been constructed as a solid piece of metal, but tiny depressions and gaps in the metalwork made it look similar to the cage guard on an industrial light. She was entranced by the electricity, silent as it entwined itself into the tiny gaps of metal like a snake before finally arching into a connection between the two prongs at the tip. Curious, Natasha pressed her thumb into the button again, waiting for the electricity to cease before she rolled the batons in her palms, testing the weight of one with graceful twirls of her wrist. The others brought closer to her face, inspecting the material. The gaps in the metal were perfectly spaced, reminding her of the small pin-points in a speaker cone.

She let them slide from her hands to grasp the handles of each, flicking the current on. She spun them and sliced them through the air,spun them around her wrist and tested a few maneuvers in a rhythmic test. The intricate motions felt natural, as natural as her old weapons had felt, and Natasha found herself grinning as she smoothly tucked them into her belt loop.

“Wow,” Barnes breathed. She jumped as if she’d been shocked, lost in her assessment.

Natasha gathered herself and cleared her throat, turning to look at Shuri. The young girl looked so eager for approval, eyes shining and hands clasped together in front of her stomach. She was twisting in place, grinning from ear-to-ear, clearly impatient for Natasha’s feedback.

“Shuri,” the assassin started, only to swallow her words as an odd swell of emotion caught her throat. Shuri moved forward in the same instance, wrapping her skinny arms around Natasha’s waist and squeezing briefly. She froze, although the gesture was quick and Shuri had pulled back just as fast as she’d stepped in.

“Okoye and Nakia and Majda and Ayo and all the other Dora Milaje could kick your ass,” Shuri reminded her. “But I would not see you defenseless.” Again, that bashful hesitance creeped into her face, reminding Natasha of just how young she was. “I think you are very cool, and I think you are a hero despite what people say. I want you to be able to continue what you do for people.”

Natasha was speechless.

“And you can’t do that with Stark’s shitty weaponry,” Shuri rambled on, sheepishly loosing traction. “So, uh. Well. Yeah, the batons. The projectile. Do not lose them - I would be very cross.”

“Shuri,” Natasha started, voice rough. “Thank you. I…There are, well - they’re…they’re amazing.” She stared down at the girl, seeing all the flickering faces of the other Widows in her charming smile and kind eyes. “You’re brilliant. I love the…you designed them with my suit in mind, too. The blue streaks, and the color here. I just - thank you, Shuri.”

She grinned in response, letting the moment pass with an acknowledging nod. Natasha was grateful as she turned to Barnes, giving her a chance to brush her sleeve under her eyes.

Barnes was regarding them with a close-lipped smile, grey eyes fondly warm in a way that made Natasha want to squirm. There was something teasing behind that smile, something that saw right through Natasha and seemed to say, _I see you. You’re softer than you want people to know._

“And for you, my friend,” Shuri announced. Another twist of her wrist and the plated dome whirred to life. This time, the sheets of metal parted in the center, slipping back like curtains.

Within the dome, mounted on a display not dissimilar to the one Natasha’s wrist projectile had been revealed on, was a metal arm. It had the same sculptured shape of artificial muscle as the one given to him by Department X, almost as if it had been formed in a mold, but the similarities stopped there. This arm that Shuri designed had the dark tint of pure vibranium, glinting like polished onyx in the lab’s harsh fluorescent. Between the edges and joints glinted some sort of golden alloy, interlaced under the shell of vibranium in a frankly beautiful pattern. The piece altogether looked dangerous, sleek and powerful in a way that Natasha was trying very hard not to describe as _sexy_. But it was, ( _anyone would think so_ , she rationalized) and with the hint of gold underplates, the whole piece looked unobtrusively, abstractly majestic.

“The alloy you can see beneath the vibranium plates is palladium, gold, and vibranium to provide density. The circuitry is housed in lightweight blended polymers to keep the strain off the connection to your nervous system. This is a lot lighter than what you’re used to, and a lot stronger.”Shuri explained. Her voice grew quieter and quieter at Barnes’s continued silence until it had nearly died out. “T-the…there are high quality stabilizers and conductive fibers within the skeleton, so it’s easy to crack open for repairs if that becomes necessary. The socket to attach to your muscle is as sterile as it gets, and the initial process may hurt, but I think that -”

Barnes suddenly turned on his heel and strode out of the room so quickly that Shuri was left blinking at the empty space he’d left behind. She looked like she might cry.

Natasha put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, soothing her with strokes of her palm. “Shh, don’t take that personally. I don’t think he’s angry at you, Shuri. It’s just a tough subject for him.”

Shuri nodded, setting her chin in a stubbornly regal gesture. “I know, it just…I hope I did not cross a line.”

“You didn’t,” Natasha assured. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll see if I can get him back in here, okay?”

The princess could only nod again, so Natasha gave her shoulder one last gentle squeeze and turned to follow Barnes into the hallway.

She found him leaning against the wall a few feet down the corridor, head in his hand and weight slipping towards the floor. As she approached he slid the rest of the way, landing on his ass without a sound and tucking his knees up. She moved quietly, letting him hear her advance but keeping her steps light enough as to not startle him.

He didn’t look up when she reached his position, didn’t look up when she put her back to the wall and mirrored his position on the ground. She straightened her legs out and kept her hands folded in her lap, back of her head against the wall so she could watch the flickering patterns of light in the ceiling.There was a long moment, perhaps minutes of waiting, before he finally spoke.

“I don’t want it back.” he croaked brokenly. “I- I don’t deserve any of this, It’s safer for everyone if-”

Natasha rolled her eyes and interjected with a stern, steely: “That’s bullshit.”

Barnes’s head snapped up, eyes red-rimmed as he tried to hold back tears. She just shrugged. “That’s bullshit,” she repeated, and finally turned her head to meet his gaze. “And you know it, too.”

He bristled as if she’d slapped him. “I don’t -”

“You _do,_ ” Natasha insisted. She tapped her knuckles against her temple. “You know it up here, somewhere. It might be buried under a lot of shit, but there’s still a person in there who knows they’re worthy of happiness.”

She had spent so long despising herself, despising the people and world who had taken everything from her. For a long time, death and pain and suffering had been the only constants in her life. She’d held onto that negativity (she still did, sometimes), but it had threatened to rot her from the inside out. She was dangerous and had done terrible, awful things that made her consider her status as a thinking-feeling-breathing human. But when she had begun to move on from the morose, revenge-driven despondence after escape…things had started to get better. There was a time when she thought she could never let go of the anger, the resentment and spite. She’d been a slave to it for so long, it had fed her skills, she didn’t think she could separate it. But she had, and she’d been better for it.

“Take it from me, Barnes. There is an _after_ to your suffering,” Natasha regarded him carefully. “Buckle up, this is going to be the first and last pep talk I ever give: You’re in that phase right now. You’re moving through it, taking it at your own pace, but the important thing is that you’re doing it. You can’t let go of that progress now. The resentment and the apathy will come back from time to time, but the difference now is that you can choose what you do with that. Someone who gives into it? Who lets that venom take them over? That’s someone who doesn’t deserve things.”

He was staring at her, entranced and hanging on every word like he needed it to breath. _How long had it been since someone gave him words of affirmation?_ she wondered sadly.

“It’s going to bother you for the rest of your days, I can’t lie about that. Not so long ago I still considered myself a monster.” She turned her head, cheek resting against the wall, and watched him contemplatively for a moment. “Barnes, you’re a good man. I believe you can handle this better than I ever could. You made the right choice, and you can start atoning for your actions whenever you’re ready.” Hesitantly, she smiled. “But you should never diminish your value by saying that you don’t deserve the _after._ That arm in there is yours, and you get to choose it this time, and you deserve that. _”_

The look he was giving her was different, not the morose blankness that had been there before she started talking, not the startled, mesmerized interest in her rant. They were bright and open now; something was there, something deep that scared her enough to make her bounce to her feet and retreat once again.

She could have sworn she felt fingers against her arm as she stood, so she put on hand on her hip and held the other out for him to take. “Come on, I’m done with my _Dear Abby_ column for today,” she joked nervously. “Think that was the last good deed I needed to make my quota this month.”

Barnes stared at her for a moment longer before his mouth twitched, and he reached out with a warm palm to take her hand. He heaved himself up into her space, making her stumble back a step against the motion to keep her balance. Startled and uncomfortable, Natasha cleared her throat and danced back a little, laughing restlessly.

“Nat,” he called out as she turned away, more than ready to escape. She paused, hiding a wince before she looked back at him. He was smiling, soft and secretive with that little dangerous edge. “You don’t give yourself enough credit either.”

Natasha flapped her hand dismissively, feeling her face begin to burn at the sincerity in the words. “I get all my lines from fortune cookies. Don’t tell anyone.”

She scurried down the hall back towards the lab, as gracefully as she could muster. With Barnes’s footsteps and heady laugh behind her, it was a little tougher than it should have been.

 

“Bucky!” Shuri nearly shouted when they returned to the room. She had been sitting with her elbows on her knees at one of her tables, fiddling with some device. At their presence in the doorway she jumped up, running over before catching herself in front of him. “Are you - I’m sorry. I probably should have warned you before I unveiled this. Since you were cleared we’ve been working on a schedule to get it placed and I was just so excited, I didn’t think how it might - “

Barnes shushed her and pulled her into a tight hug, muffling the rest of her words. Natasha thought she heard a relieved sob from the princess, but knew better than to acknowledge it. “Kid, you’re giving me a part of myself that was taken away. They ripped my arm off me, forced that hunk of metal on. Then Stark ripped it off me again. I can’t tell you the last time something felt like mine, like I had a choice in the matter. Today’s gonna mark the part of my life where I _do_ feel that way again. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

Now there was nothing muffled about the sob that Shuri let out. Her hands came up to clutch at Barnes’s hoodie. They stayed like that for a moment before Shuri looked up and let out a watery laugh, Barnes matching it with a grin.

“You’re a good kid for takin’ care of us. No reason for you to volunteer your time, but you are. Thanks.”

Shuri sniffled and then glanced around his shoulder, peering at Natasha. She was leaning against a table looking vaguely uncomfortable,arms crossed.

Natasha cleared her throat. “Thank you, Shuri.”

 

Barnes and Shuri were in the middle of a conversation about his arm and the process to reattach it when Natasha slipped away, overwhelmed with emotion at the day’s events.Guilt sat heavy in her chest, nausea souring her stomach.

Here was the inconsistency that bothered her the most: she had no idea if she’d told Barnes all those things because she meant them, or if they had been hollow. Even _she_ barely believed some of it. Was he good? Of course, she believed that. She believed that he deserved to recover, too. But after all this time, she felt no less of an outsider among heroes than after her defection. Her anger and resentment had remained a constant over the years, as much as she tried to live a better life, as much good as she tried to do. At what point could she decide that she’d done enough? Who could define retribution? Certainly not a former assassin, a spy, a murderer with as much blood and betrayal in their history as she had.

 _Widows have no need for morals,_ came that voice, that grating, evil voice. _Widows need only their loyalty and their orders. Dry your eyes before someone uses your weakness to gouge them out._

Natasha pressed the heels of her hands into her forehead, trying to dull the awful flood of anxiety that had begun bubbling up.

_You were created to deceive, and you do it so spectacularly. Even one of our own would have trouble lifting the mask. You are the success of this program, our greatest asset. You do not disappoint. You-_

“Natasha?” called a voice from her living room. “Hey, you in here?”

She drew a deep breath an hurriedly wiped her eyes, doing her best to ignore the scratchy knit of her sweater on delicate skin. The crack in her bedroom door revealed a shadow in the hallway - broad shoulders, messy knot of hair.

She pulled her door open and padded out into the living space. Barnes jumped as she approached.

“Christ, scared the shit outta me. No one’s gotten the jump in a long time,” he laughed. “Why’d you dodge earlier?”

Natasha shrugged and nonchalantly made her way to the kitchen, retrieving a kettle from underneath the stove. “Didn’t want to interrupt your time down there. It was more important for you to get familiar with that new piece than for me to stick around asking questions.”

“Still,” he frowned. “You were welcome to stay.”

She shrugged again, feeling awkward. “I hope she wasn’t too upset.”

Barnes shook his head. “Nah, we were just concerned.” His sharp sniper’s gaze tracked her as she moved about the kitchen. “You up for some garbage?” He finally asked, jerking his head at the couch.

Was she? Could she sit there and have a _silent_ breakdown with company around? She honestly doubted it.

Natasha shot him a tight smile. “No, not tonight. I’m sorry.”

He was watching her more carefully now, eyebrows furrowed. “That’s all right,” he said softly, slowly. She hated that he sounded like he was trying not to spook her - she knew the feeling. There was a long moment where they just regarded each other: Barnes from across the counter and Natasha over the top of her cup of tea.

Finally, he spoke. “You wanna talk about it?”

_No. Yes…No. Not with you. You’d understand it too well. Maybe I should._

“I’ve just been in my head lately,” she said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, you should focus on yourself.”

“Natasha, c’mon. I can tell something’s up.” He pressed. When she was silent he pushed himself up on his palms, voice raising a little. “How come you’re so stubborn? Let someone help you, for once.”

She only stared at him, eyes cold.

“Did you ever get, y’know…a real opinion?”

And just like that, the tension snapped. She snorted, shaking her head at his forwardness and the question itself.

“You don’t give up. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise,” Natasha said dryly, “but I’ve never spoken to anyone about…all of that.”

Barnes settled back on the stool he’d claimed, face softer now. “Yeah, I can see that - don’t hit me!” he laughed. “I have a feeling your issues are, uh, pretty similar. Want to talk about ‘em? Maybe it’ll help.”

_Someone holding her down, hands on her sternum as she fought and kicked and tried to take a breath. Hands on her thighs, a target yanking them apart when her plan failed, pinning her to cold marble. The same target staring up at her, face mangled from her heel and several dozen punches she’d blacked out during. The blind rage every time she saw a young victim of abuse, of murder, someone who would never see the next day or its justice. Memories that she refused to cherish, memories that felt real but she couldn’t be sure weren’t implanted. Memories that were hers, that she caught glimpses of sometimes, memories that they’d taken. Self-hate, powerful like nothing else she’d ever felt before. Hate that shook her bones and rattled her teeth. Fear every time she thought of dancing. Paranoia every time she had to reload and thought back to the time she’d fumbled her magazine and Petra had pressed a knife to her throat. Lydumila’s smoky, awful voice in her head, needles in her arm, fire in her veins. Rodchenko’s cold hand putting pressure on the small of her back, his breath on her neck. Marina’s blood splattered against tile, pink whirlpool disappearing down the drain. The little cat, warm as it wound against her feet, unaware of its dead owner and the evil it was sidling up to._

“I doubt,” Natasha choked out. “That it’s anything you want to hear.”

“Of course it’s nothing I _want_ to hear, Natasha,” he said. “All I’m saying is that talkin’, as hard as it is - Kwasi says that’s the first step. Acknowledging it, gettin’ it out of your head.”

Hoping to divert the line of questioning Natasha asked, “What did Kwasi say? In your session? He diagnose you or just ask about that baggage?”

Barnes shifted a little, but the motion didn’t seem entirely nervous. “Well, he’s pretty confident that that post-traumatic stress disorder is the big one. It’s…it wasn’t really something we had, back then. If someone came back from war all messed up, we just called it shell-shock. No fancy trauma treatment for it.”

“PTSD isn’t a surprising diagnosis,” Natasha allowed. “It’s based on anxiety responses. It only makes sense that experiencing a significant trauma could be anxiety inducing.”

“Sure,” Barnes agreed, watching her carefully. “War ’n things aren’t the only traumatic events that can lead to it, though.”

“I imagine brainwashing is a big one too.”

He frowned. “Kwasi was telling me that there’s such limited research about it, that it’s hard to get a grasp on specific treatment. There’s…there’s an agreed-upon set of practices used by the brainwash _ers_ , a lot of data about the process itself.” He took a long, shuddering breath. “Lots about breakin’ the brain,not all that much about putting it all together.”

Natasha nodded, finding herself relaxing as they spoke. “Come take a seat on the couch, you look like you’re bending in half to fit in that chair.”

Barnes followed her to the couch, finding his favorite spot against the section, back in the corner of the room. Natasha understood his need for surveillance, but she was comfortable in this space. She perched on the ottoman several feet away.

“I’ve done a little research on the subject,” she admitted. “There’s not much - it’s hard to analyze brainwashing because of how inhumane we’ve agreed it is. No doctor or scientist worth their degree would ever _think_ of subjecting someone to that. We have to wait for ‘natural’ occurrences to arise that are documented, so most of the research is in reference to prisoners of war and cult stuff.”

Barnes laughed a little. “Well, technically, isn’t that applicable to us?”

Natasha thought of tall, horrible mechanical chairs, the ozone-smell of electricity and burning skin, monitors and voices and filthy corridors, instruments and claw-like fingers, dimly lit ceilings and stretchers and the smell of alcohol and blood. She though of sobbing that might have been hers, she thought of sobbing that definitely _wasn’t_ hers. She thought of music played on repeat, of white noise and mechanical screeching and her eyes forcibly opened. She thought of black spots in her memory, of lost time and memories she couldn’t place on any traditional linear spectrum. She thought of pain so excruciating, so intense, that she had learned to embrace the blackness that followed out of necessity. She thought of her fear of mistakes, of empty magazines clattering to the ground, of little girls with smiles too sharklike for their faces, the ache in her bones when winter arrived.

“Yeah,” she said, taking a long sip of her tea. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Sometimes I wish there were more people like us,” Barnes laughed ruefully. “It’s an awful thing to want; makes me feel selfish. But it’s not selfish to want people to understand, right? It’s not selfish to want people who know how to help. It’s not selfish to want to get…better.”

Natasha laughed now, and it sounded less hollow then she felt. “You sound so much like Sam right now. I heard him talk to a group full of vets before, and it was just…god, it gave me cavities.”

He was quiet for so long a moment that she lifted her gaze from her nails. He was regarding her with those intense eyes once again.

“Natasha,” he intoned slowly, suddenly dead-serious. “I’m glad that you came here. I really don’t think I could be doing this without your support. It’s good to have someone who understands.”

At a loss for words, Natasha tore her eyes away from his, instead settling on his arm flung lazily over the back of the couch. He was picking at a stray thread along the seam, a motion that made her realize he was dealing with the same nerves she was.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said despite her brain warning her not to.

That familiar, cocky smirk lit up his face immediately, atmosphere in the room zipping pat serious and morose to heated all at once. His eyebrows followed, waggling in mischievous interest.

Christ, if he wasn’t as predictable as he always had been.

“Is that so?” he hummed. She had her legs crossed at the knee, her foot bouncing in the air - he shifted forward suddenly, and it was all she could do not to jerk away when his leg brushed hers. “ _Everywhere_?”

She couldn’t read behind his tone, dramatic and serious all at once. He was trying to make her laugh, she realized, but there was also something dangerously sincere behind that smirk.

 _Oh, but this had been a bad idea,_ she thought with a nervous swallow.

Natasha had been a recipient of his patented, confident flirtation over the years. She’d also been in a position to watch him train it on others, and there was something shameless in the way he was behaving now that reminded her of that. He really knew how to turn on the charm when he wanted, even before he’d been trained as a spy. People never failed to react so _ridiculously_ impaired - if they didn’t have the ability (or desire) to resist him.

At the moment, Natasha rather doubted she had either.

His eyes shifted, quick as a flash and then back up, when she moved to uncross her legs. He held her gaze almost stubbornly, although she could see that he was fighting not to follow the path of her leg as she stretched forward…and angled his knee out of her personal space with surprising force. But Barnes was strong enough that he wouldn’t have moved without letting himself _be_ moved, and his shoulders hit the back of the couch with a slight bounce that had her laughing.

“Don’t push your luck, pensioner,” Natasha said, finding her voice sounded raspier than usual. “You know what they say about black widows.”

Natasha drew away slower than she should have. It pleased her _immensely_ to see a decent tint working its way into his cheeks - but it also served as a reminder how absolutely wrong it was for her to be playing along with these games. It was exactly the complete opposite of what she had been telling herself to stop doing. With some effort she forced herself to lean back out of the charged air between them, aware that the space hadn’t really shrunk that much at all.

“Majda and Nakia sent a message earlier, by the way. They returned this afternoon and want us to attend a meeting later tonight.” Natasha punctuated this by vacating the seat, slowly rising so that she towered over where he was still slumped against the back of the couch.

“Don’t get yourself into too much trouble before then,” she warned. “I’m feeling less merciful than usual and won’t be available to bail you out. Now get out of here. I’ll see you at the meeting.”

Barnes’s eyes were still on her as she took her tea cup from the end table and disappeared into her room. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t a little thrilling, and that…

Well. That was definitely just another complication, now wasn’t it?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Very long chapter - hope it makes up for the wait).
> 
> BIG TRIGGER WARNING -- violence, vague description of sexual assault, depictions of disassociation.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to edit in a big thank you to everyone who has been following for so long, despite the fact that chapters are often delayed because of my personal schedule. It really means a lot that you guys continue to read and comment - it motivates me to keep going. So thanks, and I hope you stick with it until the end. :)

“Please say this bridge cannot

end

as it ends.”

\- Marina Tsvetaeva, from _Poem of the End_ , 1947

* * *

 

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly - almost agonizingly so. Natasha’s restlessness fed into a lazy, lethargic sort of boredom, the kind that generally only plagued her on quiet weekends. Usually she might welcome some peace and quiet, but lately her routine daydreams of a secluded cabin or private beach only served to leave her on edge.

So when the jittery thoughts, the sudden fatigue, and the pounding headache united into the familiar buzzing at her temples, she knew what was coming.

Natasha was good at identifying weakness in people. She had to be - it was a requirement of her job. But unfortunately for her, that expertise meant that she was also very, _very_ aware of her own weaknesses. Her unapproachable demeanor, the sharp tongue, her dry humor…they were all defense mechanisms. But they were all born of her biggest problem.

Allowing people to get close to her, even opening up just a little, went against every instinct that had been burned into her. All that training and the decades of grueling discipline. She’d been used as a tool, a killer washed clean of remorse and any remaining smudges of humanity. Success for the Widow had always meant keeping her distance, even when she was getting close. With the excitement and events of the day coupled with her apprehension of her mission, her over-indulgent conversations with Barnes, how unacceptably _comfortable_ she had grown to be in Wakanda…it all left her with a unique agitation. Over the years, she had become horrifyingly intimate with it. She felt imbalanced from the inside out. It made her skin crawl, made her head to a fuzzy, awful fog. To her core, to her quick, she felt wrong.

She hadn’t exactly been following her training lately.

Even after all the time that had passed, she still suffered the consequences when she tried to carve out a little piece for herself from the life they’d cursed her with. So ingrained was her training that defying _any_ of her lessons threatened to send her into a tailspin. Within her was a scarred, awful thing: it fought against any action that allowed her a sense of self, scoffed at mercy, laughed at individuality. At the same time, she was the person she had worked so hard to become. She was the entity that craved normalcy, humanity, companionship.

Fighting back against her indoctrination, against the decades of conditioning and training, used to make her physically ill. It was always a losing battle, Sisyphus pushing the stone uphill. She could go weeks, months, years without crippling to its weight, but it was inevitable. And although it had been quite some time since she’d been taken fully out of commission, her mind found ways of punishing her besides the physical.

 

_Her first kill, a performance. Sloppy, desperate - but it hadn’t started out that way. She’d been arrogant and eager to impress her instructors. Sweaty palms at her throat for the trouble. The sudden shock of understanding that this is what Anya must have felt as she died under Natasha’s fingers. Her throat collapsing, the panic, the animalistic rage. The rage that sent her small hand skittering for the gun her opponent had knocked from her grasp. The weight of it in her palm as she hefted it up, ignoring the sharp pain from her shattered radius. Her rough cry. Her ears ringing as she unloaded that last round into his chest._

_She’d almost suffocated under the weight of his body. When she managed to pull herself out from below the stench of blood and sweat, she’d reloaded her gun with shaking fingers before emptying a full clip into his face. After, he barely looked human. After, she barely felt human._

_Once she padded towards the two-way mirror, splattered with blood, the speaker in the room had crackled to life:_

_“Unacceptable.”_

 

_“ <Unacceptable>,” a voice in her ear. Russian. Breath that smelled of mushrooms and seafood, tinged foul by a long-surpassed expiration (she still could not touch coulibiac to this day). _

_This was another masculine weight she could not escape. Similar, but different. Different and far, far worse._

_She couldn’t turn her face to hide her tears. A sweat palm held tight against the side of her face, pressing her opposite temple into the ground. She bore the full weight of it._

_“ <Widows do not feel. So, they do not cry.>”_

_“ <Please,>” she tried, although she knew it would make no difference and only serve to anger him more._

_As suspected, the palm tightened until she cried out. The pain wasn’t comparable, though._

_“ <They do not beg, either. You will not act like a whimpering, soft-headed waif on missions, Widow.>”_

_She cried that time, lay like she was dead for the next dozen times after. Until her mind learned to shut down, until she learned to drown out the noises and the pain. Until she learned to let the Widow take over._

_He would be the first, she promised herself, he would be the first when she found the courage to leave. She had a dull knife with his name on it._

 

_“That was unacceptable,” said another voice, more warm and familiar than the others. “You missed the target by, like, fifty feet! Stick to your guns, Tash, or - Tasha? Natasha? What’s the matter? Hey. Look at me, what’s - is this - Natasha! Natasha?”_

_A thousand other memories like this, pain and cruelty delivered as if her mind was trying to say: ‘remember what happens when you disobey. Remember the hold that still restrains you. This is the price of your freedom. Do you still want it?”_

 

Natasha barely made it into her apartment before the thoughts overwhelmed her. The voices, the sights, the sounds; it pressed tightness into her chest like it was a real weight. It buckled her knees. She swallowed back a wail as the floor came up to meet her, a sound so awful and inhumane that it threatened to tear her throat. She wasn’t even sure it had been from her.

And with that noise, with that last stubborn act of defiance, her mind checked out. Her last coherent thought was of how evil it was, this trigger within her mind that punished her for acting human. For thinking that she might have the _right_ to think herself human. The fitful, restless energy bubbled over completely, and she felt the tension snap like a shockwave as if from far away.

The panic rolled over her, coiled and surrounded her, pulled her down into its depths. Her hands lifted of their own accord, blunt nails drew blood from her arms and scalp. She couldn’t feel the pain, as far as she was. She’d been evicted from her own head and there was safety in that. When things like this happened, when it became too much, her mind and body uncoupled.

She doubled over. Curled tight into a fetal position against the shut door. Under her nails, her scalp and hair felt oily and wet with sweat. It dripped down her face as her body shook, fell into her open mouth as she whimpered. From miles away, Ceilia’s robotically concerned voice rang out.

The lights in the room dimmed and her vision followed.

The black void swallowed her whole.

All was still.

 

She came to after what felt like hours. It might have been, for all she knew. The fingers of one hand were buried in the carpet, dried blood clumped under her nails. Her temple was pressed flat against the cool material and she was breathing shallowly. Her other fist was clenched tight, nestled against her collarbone and the ground. It ached as she pulled it away, having been pressed tight against delicate tissue and bone as her lungs completed each cycle.

Natasha took a moment to ground herself. She let her eyes slide shut.

 _You are Natalia Alianovna Romanova,_ she reminded herself. _You are Natasha Romanoff. You were tortured and trained by Department X. Department X is no more. You defected. You escaped. You are in Wakanda as a guest. There is no one here to hurt you, you are safe._

_You are Natalia Alianovna Romanova. You are Natasha Romanoff -_

Natasha pushed herself to her feet, perhaps a little too quickly. She swayed on shaky legs and stumbled towards her bed, arms out to catch herself. Her fingers were tingled as if they’d been without blood for some time.

“Ce —,” she coughed, throat hoarse. “Ceilia. What time is it?”

“The time is 7:04 p.m., Natasha,” the AI responded. She sounded concerned, slightly hesitant. “You spent the last two hours and thirty-six minutes in a dissociative state. You told me that you would be better in time.

“Fuck,” Natasha groaned. She rubbed her eyes. “Did you tell anyone?”

“No, Natasha,” she replied. “You requested that I refrain from issuing a medical alert, as my program dictates with such events. If I may, though…I would recommend that you seek assistance at your earliest convenience if these attacks are common.” Natasha groaned. “It should be no trouble to find a qualified professional, if that concerns you. As you are no doubt aware, Wakanda is home to many lauded psychological —”

“That won’t be necessary,” Natasha interrupted with a wave of her hand. She propped herself up, balancing on her elbow. “Thank you, though.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Ceilia spoke again:

“It might not please you to hear, but I am now obligated to inform an emergency response team if you find yourself in a similar state again.”

Natasha’s mouth opened and closed. She ran an unsteady hand through her hair with a laugh that dissolved into a wince when her palm came back slick. With some effort, she managed to convince her feet to move in the direction of the bathroom, aching for a shower.

 

She spent most of the remaining evening on her couch, feet curled under her thighs. They only sound in the room, which was cast in the fiery orange glow of sunset, was the soft, rhythmic tapping of her fingers on the tablet screen.

As uncomfortable as it was to revisit, Natasha forced herself to recount the panic attack and her ensuing…break. For goodmeasure she transcribed as much as she could remember of her dreams from the last few days. All things considering, she had quite a bit of writing to do. She found that some of the more pleasant things helped her relax, and she could hardly argue that there was nothing cathartic in the practice.

Had she been ten years younger, she might have been embarrassed about recording so much personal information about herself. And if she were twenty years younger, she would cringe at the idea of reminiscing on her thoughts or opinions at all.

And yet, she still hesitated to write certain things. Once her fingers translated the thoughts, they became pixels. Pixels became letters, letters that were suddenly words on the screen. They were recorded then, made real by her voice. She couldn’t ignore them after that - they were no longer locked in her head. Once she acknowledged those things, they were _there_. Even if she were to delete the diary app, destroy the data, nuke the tablet…they would still be there. They were tangible memories, feelings and thoughts and fears, all powered by the faith she had in their existence.

Personal information beyond a clinical recounting of her damage was harder to address. It was her. It was the identity she had built, the only identity she had ever had a say in creating. After all, she knew next to nothing of the young girl that had come before. All she had was who she had become, who she allowed herself to be.

When her files had been released to the world by her own doing, it had been a challenge to force her fingers to type the commands. That information was proof of the evil she had done, medical facts and mission reports and sensitive data. The files were impersonal, detached. Her voice as she wrote…not so much.

Barnes’s tablet lay next to her on the couch, screen face-down. It didn’t have a camera or even any sort of recording capabilities, but it made her feel as if she was being watched. All it really was programed with was a decade-themed playlist courtesy of Sam, movies downloaded by Clint and Peter’s recommendations, and a note from Steve. Natasha had even contributed several gigs worth of classical music. Still, she couldn’t help but think of it as an extension of him - even if he hadn’t used it yet. It made her wary.

Natasha’s fingers paused as she caught sight of her reflection in the glossy, polished surface. After her meeting with Majda, she’d finally be able to hand over the tablet and get it out of her possession -

Her meeting. Natasha shoved the edge of her sleeve up enough to see the face of her watch and…well, shit.

Shit.

 

Majda had requested to meet the two of them in one of the lower levels. Natasha followed her instructions until she could hear the distant hum of the vibranium transport. At the far end of a forked corridor, two Dora Milaje stood guard. To the left was a tall entrance towards what seemed to be a training room, and Natasha moved towards it.

“You are late.” One of the women angled her spear between Natasha and the door. “I will assume this was not a purposeful choice to be disrespectful, and give you a second chance.”

Natasha blinked at her, considering the words and the weapon between them.“Well, in that case, I won’t keep Majda waiting any longer.”

“No, you won’t,” the warrior agreed, sharing a brief glance with the other guard. With that, she moved the spear away and let Natasha through.

Majda and the spy, Nakia, faced each other, but they were not the only ones in the room. They formed a slight angle to Barnes, who stood several paces between them. The two women were speaking quietly, hushed enough that Natasha couldn’t hear from across the room. Barnes was intensively listening, brow knit in what might be anger or concern. He was sporting a frown serious enough that it had Natasha on guard as moved forward. She was wary of the edge of the room, the people tucked into the far corner. There were about a half dozen young women lined against the wall opposite the trio. Every girl held a long wooden stave tipped with a blunt edge, and each held their chin high as they took in the commands of an older Dora Milaje before them. None of them looked much older than Shuri and Natasha’s heart instinctively sunk at the display before her. It was painfully familiar (armed young women awaiting orders, girls being trained for combat), and she had to turn her head away.

Suddenly there was a wave of adolescent giggles, followed by a more mature chuckle from the students’ instructor. Barnes, Nakia, and Majda had turned to look at them, and Natasha watched as the group giggled again and dissolved into whispering - until the older warrior barked an order at them in Wakandan.

Natasha swallowed the discomfort. It was unfair of her to draw comparisons. The Dora Milaje and the Black Widow program were two complete opposite ends of a spectrum. The King’s protectors were fierce and talented, destined for an honored and respected position in society. The Widows had been conditioned into cruelty and developed loyalty through fear alone. The girls here seemed to be thriving. They all looked healthy and happy, despite the determination with which they suddenly threw themselves into sparring. Natasha could tell that they took their training seriously. Their instructor watched them with a sparkle in her eye and a soft grin on her lips face, even between shouted orders that barely drowned the rhythmic _clack-clack-clack_ of spears. 

These girls, she could tell, were loved. They were happy. They were everythingNatasha wished for her fellow Widows, for the childhood that had been robbed from them all.

These girls prospered where the Widows had not. They had a sense of belonging, support. They were loyal to their sisters, to their nation, and they looked no worse for the wear from it. Natasha’s loyalty had been at a price to her wellbeing - there was no undercurrent of fear among these girls.

“Romanoff!”

Natasha’s head whipped to the side, settling back on the three awaiting her. Majda waved when they made eye contact, gesturing her over.

“They’re amazing,” Natasha said as she approached. Her eyes had drifted again to the trainees. “That’s a lot of raw talent for girls that young.”

“We are very proud,” Majda said with a warm grin. “They honor Wakanda with their enthusiasm and skill.”

Nakia chuckled. “The War Dogs will steal a few of them in time - there is great potential among this group in particular.”

Majda held up a wagging finger, and the two shared a look. Nakia broke the stare first, turning to Natasha with another tinkling laugh. She stuck out her hand.

“You know, we don’t have to do that every time we see each other,” Natasha said as she grasped the other woman’s hand in hers. “That’s not how it works.”

“It is just good to see you again, Natasha.”

“Likewise,” Natasha replied, flashing her a saucy grin and wink. The gesture was worth it solely for Majda’s grumble and eye roll. “How was your mission, by the way? Neither of you look seriously injured.”

The taller warrior sported a healing, dark bruise along the left side of her neck. “Nothing that we could not handle, of course.” Her eyes softened, even as she teased Natasha, “Thank you for minding my health, Romanoff. If we need nursing we will know who to visit.”

Natasha laughed and held her hands up. “Oh no, Maj. Trust me, my brand of bedside manner is more likely to do more harm than good.”

The quip earned a snort from Barnes, whom Natasha had almost forgotten stood just next to her. She turned to him, smiling warily.

“Well. Hey, soldier. Haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“Almost a whole five hours,” Barnes responded. His mouth curled attractively in a grin. “I was starting to enjoy it — the quiet, I mean.”

Now Majda laughed. “Ah, I know the feeling. I had to be convinced not to stretch this mission out. It was almost a vacation.”

“Oh har-har,” Natasha crossed her arms, glaring between the two of them. She fought back a smile of her own. “If you guys invited me here just to _bully_ me…”

Majda sucked her teeth, mocking Natasha’s dramatic pout and drooped shoulders. Even Nakia laughed at her impression.

“Like I’ve said before,” Barnes said, coughing to hide a chuckle, “You’re awful talkative for a spy.”

“And you’re awful _awful_ for someone who claims to be a gentleman from the 1940s,” Natasha fired back.

Barnes leaned forward a little, mischievous enough to fluster her. “Whoever gave you the idea I’m a gentleman, huh?”

“All right,” Majda interrupted. She sounded as if she were holding back another laugh. “The two of you need to flirt on your own time.” She ignored Natasha’s embarrassed protest. “We’re here because the situation in Wakanda has taken a dangerous turn.”

Barnes exchanged a concerned glance with her.

“There have been some complications,” Nakia added.

“Hm. Let me guess,” Natasha said. “This has something to do with that guy that showed up, doesn’t it?” Majda blinked at her, and Natasha just shrugged.“Are we all going to pretend like we would even be able to ignore him? Come on. We all saw the news. That jawline is impossible.”

Barnes laughed. “We’re talking about the guy with the braids? Looks like he’d give you a night to remember and then not even leave a note in the morning?”

Natasha pointed at him and then her nose, eyebrows raised.

When she turned back to Majda, the warrior was pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head. “I don’t have time for this.”

She sounded exasperated, as expected. But there was something else to it, something unusually nervous. It was something too close to _worried_ for Natasha to ignore. Majda never gave the impression that she was capable of being nervous. Natasha’s blood ran cold. This was serious.

“Hold on.” She looked from Majda to Nakia and back. “What’s going on?”

Majda shook her head. “The details are not for you to know. We are… there is some confusion even among Wakandans. All we are sure of for now is that something is building. N’Jadaka’s arrival was quite disruptive. He claimed right by heritage and challenged the King’s rule.”

“If it’s a fight —” Barnes offered, shoulders rolling back instinctively. He had that familiarly stubborn, loyal set to his jaw.

“No.”

Majda and Natasha looked at each other, surprised to hear the other speak at the same time. Natasha waved her hand between them.

“No,” the warrior repeated slowly, tearing her eyes away from Natasha. Authority resonated from her voice, unwavering. “We cannot have you here in Birnin Zana, much less the palace. Now we must prepare for the worst. If it happens, it will be too great a risk for you to remain here. Shuri will be down to brief you for details, but just know that it is decided. You will be sent away.”

He was tense, eyes gone dark and stormy. _Stupid, stubborn idiot._ “But —”

“I will not hear anymore arguments!” Majda hissed. Emotion soured her voice. “I know that you would give your life for this place if given the opportunity. That is what we’re trying to avoid. I acknowledge your loyalty, but T’Challa and your doctors agree that we are not willing to risk your health or safety.”

He was silent for a long moment. “If Natasha is staying, though —”

Majda put her hands on her hips. “Natasha is _not_ staying.”

Natasha (who had been unaware that Natasha was not staying) whipped her head to the side. “What?”

Now, the Dora Milaje threw her hands in the air, letting loose a frustrated growl that nearly made the both of them flinch. Nakia winced as well.

“Bastet help me,” Majda said. “I can barely stand the two of you separately.”

She twisted towards Natasha. “You: Okoye will arrive with Shuri to brief you. I will not hear any dissent on the matter.” She pointed between the two of them. “Do you hear me? No. More. Arguments. Right now there are more important responsibilities that I must take care. I do not have the time nor patience to bicker with either of you.”

Nakia hummed. “And you could not afford my rates for child care.”

Majda cut a dark look at her. After a moment, she turned back between Natasha and Barnes, eyebrows raised as if to challenge them both. Natasha shrugged, waiting for Barnes’s stubbornness to subside. Eventually, he offered the warrior a stiffly raised chin, albeit matched with a pout.

“Fine,” he said.

With that, Majda brushed her hands together and held them up. The message was clear: _I wash my hands of this_. “I will return with Okoye and Shuri soon. In the meantime, please do not get yourselves into too much trouble.”

Nakia watched her disappear out of the room and then turned towards them. “I probably don’t need to tell you that she is going through more than she lets on at any given time.”

“I’ve never seen her like that,” Natasha said quietly. “If Maj is concerned about something, shit is really about to hit the fan, isn’t it?”

“You Americans and your idioms.” Nakia’s mouth twitched. “I wish you the best in the coming days, Barnes. In Shuri’s hands you will undoubtedly be safe.” She put her hands on Natasha’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “And you, Agent Romanoff. I wish you what you will need most: luck.”

Natasha returned the hug awkwardly. “Thanks, gives me confidence about this mysterious mission.”

The young spy pulled back, smiling warmly. She let go of Natasha and moved to stand in front of Barnes, arms crossed over her chest. Barnes mirrored the motion back at her, and with that she followed Majda’s exit, only turning at the door to give them one final wave.

 

After a long moment, Natasha turned to face him. She was startled to find his searching gaze already on her.

“Was that ‘good luck’ foreboding, or was it just me?”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” Barnes blurted. “But are you all right? You look…uh…”

Natasha laughed, quirking a brow at him. “Thanks. It’s always a good sign when someone’s too ashamed to finish a sentence that starts like that.”

He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, I’m sorry. I know how that sounds. You just look…well. Romanoff, you look tired as hell. Pale, too.”

Natasha chewed at her lip. Was it that obvious? She had darted out of the apartment to get here after she came to, but she hadn’t exactly been thorough in washing up. She swiped a finger under her eye and grimaced when it came back without any smudges of mascara. Well, there went that excuse.

“I always look tired and pale.” She joked dryly.“I’m Russian.”

He rolled his eyes, but her tone pulled a short, amused huff out of him regardless. Clearly not dissuaded, he took a step forward and tilted his head down to minimize the distance between them, prompting her to meet his gaze. “Come on, Red.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” she insisted, twisting her arm away from him when he reached out. “If anything, I woke up with a headache. Stop babying me, Christ. You’re worse than Steve.”

Barnes’s eyebrows dipped, gray eyes studying her face for any tells. They knew each other so well, at least at one point in time, and now she wondered if she had retained the ability to read her, despite not retaining his memories of her. She hated being on the receiving end of that scrutiny

“Paler than usual, then,” he said finally. “And you have bad circles under your eyes. Looks like someone went under ‘em with a marker. What is it, Nat? Tell me.”

“No.” Natasha snapped, angry at his refusal to back down and his ability to pick her apart so well. “No, I will not. Listen, would you drop it?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Something’s bothering you. Are you gettin’ enough sleep?”

Natasha’s anger bubbled up, threatening to make her patience snap. She looked around at the girls still practicing and pulled him into a more secluded area, where a minimalist seating area consisting of two seats and an end table had been set up. It faced a balcony that looked out on the huge cavern and vibranium mines below.

Quick as a flash, Natasha reached out to grip his shoulder and used his surprise and her lower center of balance to tug him towards the area. He was stronger and could break the hold if he really wanted to (and for a second he even resisted), but he quickly allowed the handling.

Barnes landed with a cranky noise as Natasha maneuvered herself in the seat opposite him.

“You know what, now that you mention it, I am getting tired…” Natasha squeezed, watching him wince at the bite of her nails in his shoulder “I’m getting tired of you interrogating me and then -”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Barnes hissed , jerking himself out of her grasp. “Trust me, I’m real good at spotting the aftermath of an anxiety attack.”

Natasha’s mouth snapped shut, pressed into an angry line.Her hand fell between them to land on her knee and she met his icy, stubborn stare for a long moment, debating where the conversation was heading and if she wanted to follow it. She felt guilty, and she never liked feeling guilty.

Defensive, she murmured, “It wasn’t…it wasn’t an anxiety attack.”

“What was it, then?” he asked, still residually angry but much softer than people might think him capable. When she was silent, he only sighed. “Look, you don’t have to talk about it. But things are going bad around here. It’s getting down to the wire and we all gotta be on our toes. You think shutting down is going to help? ‘Cuz I sure as hell don’t.”

He was right, Natasha knew that much. But she also knew she had to tread carefully. As tender and kind as he was being, this wasn’t them - this wasn’t the James she could share things like this with. They were different people, divided by the chasm of time. For him, there was a complete lack of association at all. Natasha was virtually a stranger. She had no right to burden him, and he had no right to know.

She rubbed her upper arms, shuddering as her eyes cut to the side. The words flowed before she could stop them, regardless of her trepidations.

“Do you ever just…turn off? Something happens, something triggers it, and you just…” she gestured loosely next to her temple.

The silence that followed stretched for so long that she began to feel stupid. Barnes was absolutely quiet, not a word or acknowledgement that she had even spoken at all. Natasha tried not to fold into herself, feeling stupid and sentimental and _foolish_.

There was a heavy hand on her shoulder, squeezing comfortingly and then gone so fast she might have imagined it.

“Yeah,” Barnes croaked. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m sorry you gotta deal with that, too.”

Spurred by his understanding and motivated by the idea that someone could empathize with her on this, Natasha barreled on:

“I lose hours, sometimes.” She admitted. “ _Hours_. I’ll come to - the lights will go back on - and I’m laying on the ground…or even in the middle of something I don’t remember starting. I’ll be reading or staring up at the ceiling or in a different place than before. It’s like I step out of myself and come back when it’s convenient. I worry constantly that it will happen at a really bad time. In the middle of a mission, while I’m doing Avengers work, while there are people around.”

Barnes made an apologetic noise, but extended no other gestures of comfort for her. “Kwasi and I talked about this the other day.”

She glanced up. “You did?”

He nodded, settling back against the seat. “The way he explained…well, it made a whole lot of sense.” Natasha only blinked at him.

Right arm lifting to his temple, Barnes pointed at his skull and then waved vaguely at her. “Our brains, y’know. They’re an organ like our heart and lungs and everything else. We got a body, but it can be real fragile, so we got a built in defense system. Liver and kidneys filter bad shit out, white blood cells handle immune system things, all that. Brains have a specialized line of defense, too. Normal people, they don’t gotta use it most of the time. But when - when people like us, you’n me, people who have some kinda trauma…it recognizes that like our immune system recognizes a virus.” He paused, eyes dropping to his feet. “When we got severe enough issues, our brain’s got the switch it turns when it decides ‘okay, that’s enough’. We don’t have access to that switch”

“It shuts off.” Natasha said.

Barnes nodded slowly. “It shuts everything off, except the necessities. I guess bein’ conscious ain’t a necessity. You hear something, smell something, _do_ something that triggers a memory of that trauma you’re tryin’ to avoid… Your brain decides it just ain’t worth the stress you’re about to put yourself through. It kicks you outta the pilot’s seat. It checks you out.”

Natasha watched the Dora Milaje candidates on the other side of the room, and processed what he said. She’d been through her share of psychological textbooks and research, desperate to find anything that might be able to help her. But Barnes had a way of putting it that quieted hr anxiety and worsened it all at once. It was disturbing how comfortable she was with him, even now. Perhaps it was on some subconscious level. Perhaps that other Natasha, the young woman so long and far gone, the one who had trusted and loved this man. Neither of them were the same, and she doubted she was capable (or would allow herself to be capable) of feeling that way ever again, but still. There had been a version of her who had felt that way, and she supposed it wasn’t improbable, the idea that it could remain. She was able to appreciate the lingering remnants of that connection for the blessing they were, at least in moments like this.

Natasha doubted there was anyone who could understand her as well as James ever could. She wondered if he felt similarly, at least back when he remembered her.

Natasha shook herself out of those thoughts, uncomfortable. “Kwasi sure has been putting in the work, hasn’t he?”

Barnes hid a twitch of a grin by ducking his head. Hair drifted around his face and her hand itched to reach out. “He says I’m making surprisingly fast progress,” he declared proudly.

“It isn’t just Kwasi who’s been doing the heavy lifting,” Natasha amended. Barnes he looked stunned -bashful, even.

“I... Thanks, Romanoff. Most of it’s got to do with the fact that now I have the time to focus on _wanting_ to get better. After D.C., I was focused on surviving. I wasn’t in the right place to get help, I don’t think. I didn’t believe I deserved it.” He traced shapes into the denim on his thigh, peeking up at her hesitantly. “Sometimes I still wonder if I do.”

Natasha shook her her. “You do, Barnes. Everyone does. Besides, this is the happiest I’ve seen you since —”

The moment came crashing down all at once.

 _Since when,_ Natasha thought desperately, trying to remedy what that sentence had begun to imply. _Since…In decades, I guess? Since we’ve known each other. Oh, Natasha. You idiot!_

She cleared he throat, wary of the odd look on his face. “Well, never mind. I guess D.C. wouldn’t exactly’ be a fair baseline to measure the quality of your mental state against, would it?”

Barnes hesitated too, eyes searching hers for something. He looked as if he knew he wouldn’t find it, but persisted nonetheless. Silence hung between them, the uncomfortable kind that chewed at her patience and made her want to squirm in her seat. Barnes was the one to break it.

“Yeah, but probably a better baseline than Odessa, at any rate.”

Her stomach dropped. She felt as if a beaming spotlight had just been turned on her.

 _Odessa_. Was it possible that he remembered Odessa? She couldn’t jump to conclusions. How much did he remember, if any? Was he only mentioning it because he’d heard something from Steve? Her mouth went dry as her heart rate picked up, panic swirling in her like a storm.

He’d been fresh out of a wipe when she saw him in Odessa. She knew at the time that it would be one of the worst for him - she knew _why_ they were doing it, and what they were taking. That wipe had been most of the reason that the mission had been so painful for her, in more than one way. After she defected, she’d been vulnerable in new and awful ways. Running into him and having the knowledge that he was sporting a headful of scrambled eggs and nothing to remember her by only haunted her more. Only added to the bite of that goddamn bullet.

“Odessa?” she asked, hating how unnatural her voice sounded. “What about Odessa?”

Barnes squinted at her, eyes shadowed with suspicion.

_Shit._

“We…we ran into each other.” He looked her up and down assessingly. “I got a storied past and all, but I don’t think I’ve run into _that_ many flexible redheads.”

Natasha tried not to blush.

“Don’t remember much about it,” he continued, “but I knew I’d seen you before D.C… I was right. My target - some egghead that had defected. You were there, in Odessa. Musta been after you got with SHIELD. You were protecting him.”

“I —” She tried to swallow down her distress. He didn’t _seem_ to remember as much as she thought, but she had to choose her next words wisely. “Color me impressed. That was a long time ago. I’m surprised you even remember it.”

“Yeah,” He frowned. “They got a lot from me, but the bastards made sure I’d remember every target, every victim. Guilt-powered failsafe, I guess. His - your guy in Odessa - he was one of the only missions that had complications. I remember more details from those. They made sure of that.”

“Complications,” Natasha echoed weakly. Could she have this conversation with him now, after the afternoon she’d had? No, surely not. Not now, not ever.

She… Christ, before she could stop herself, her hand had drifted down to the hem of her shirt. The fabric bunched at her hip and she watched as his eyes tracked the movement - and then snap back up shamefully, glued to her face.

“Well, I guess you could call this a complication.”

Barnes’s mouth seemed to be caught in his perpetual frown, but only for a moment. It deepened when he glanced down. He sucked in a startled, sharp breath of air.

“Holy shit,” he said, staring at the ragged pink scar. “Red —”

“Bye-bye bikinis,” she joked thinly, thinking of Steve and D.C., when everything had gone to hell.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even crack a grin, lift an eyebrow, snort at her joke. He was staring at the mottled, bumpy mark on her otherwise smooth skin with something unnervingly like horror written across his face.

“The serum… “ he tried. “The serum should have —”

“Russians are good at pirating, remember?” Natasha interrupted. She rubbed her thumb over the edge of it. The nerves were dead there, but around the edges the skin felt odd, made her feel like it was something she needed to protect. “Bootleg serum. I don’t scar very easy, but this must have been a particularly nasty bullet. And bad luck.”

“Bad luck,” he repeated. “Bad _luck.”_

“It was a one in a million shot, Barnes,” she said, sensing his growing dismay. “I mean, it was impressive as all hell. I was laying there bleeding out and wondering if I’d gotten into a gun fight with an Olympic sharpshooter or something.”

Oof. Nothing but silence.

“He was kneeling,” he said, staring through her like she wasn’t there at all. “You - you were blocking the shot. It was purposeful. You were protecting him, but you knew. You knew that shot was coming and you tried anyway.”

Natasha grinned weakly. “Fuck all that did, huh? You got him anyway. Should have known better, considering what I was going up against.”

BArnes’s eyes finally drifted up to hers, and she was shocked at the frantic, miserable remorse she saw in them.

“I _shot_ you,” he said tightly.

“I mean, you shot me to get someone else, so I don’t take it personally. Plus, I landed a couple on you in D.C.,” Natasha countered, faltering in her confidence.

His hand twitched. It lifted a fraction of an inch (she _saw_ it) before it curled into a tight fist. Barnes pulled it against his thigh away from her. She’d only noticed the movement because the rest of him was so eerily, uncannily still..

“I shot you.”

Natasha let go of her shirt, allowing it to settle back over the waistband of her jeans. “I didn’t show you to upset you or collect on some fucked up debt, Barnes. I just - I —” She frowned. “I don’t know why I did, actually. I mean, you didn’t shoot to kill. So, as far as I’m concerned, we’re even. I want you to know I don’t hold any grudges.”

“ _Grudges_?” Barnes laughed hollowly. Barnes stared at her, jaw so tense she was worried he might grind his teeth into powder. “My friends sure got bad habits of glossin’ over the awful shit I’ve done to ‘em. I could have killed you.”

The words yanked at her heartstrings enough that she felt the panicky need to put some distance between them. Natasha settled back against her own seat, crossing her legs and angling herself out of the conversation a degree. She cradled her hands together and pressed them dramatically over her heart.

“Aw, Frosty. We’re friends?”

Barnes glared at her. “We’re friends. And this —this is…God. Natasha, I am so sorry.”

She flapped her hand at him. “Like I said. You didn’t shoot to kill. We’re good.”

 

Okoye and Shuri’s arrival was punctuated by the loud din of spears against the floor as the two warriors standing guard greeted the princess and their superior. Barnes jumped a little, shoulders going tense, and Natasha shot him an even smile that she hoped put a damper on his anxiety. He’d been wringing his hands together for the last ten minutes, clearly concerned about what the coming days would bring for him. He’d grown accustomed to his new life, this third chance; the palace and Wakanda by extension had clearly done him a lot of good despite what the bad day might imply. Natasha could only assume how worried he was that the calm, peaceful life he’d begun to establish would once again be wrenched away.

Natasha reached out and awkwardly put a hand on his bouncing knee. He jumped again like he’d been shocked.

“Sorry. You’re making me nervous too,” she said as Okoye and Shuri approached. She lifted her hand to greet them and then turned back to Barnes. “You can’t assume that the worst is going to happen. That’s no way to live. For all we know this is going to be temporary and you’ll be back in Birnin Zana by next week at the latest.”

Barnes gave her a tight-lipped smile, but his knee had stopped its incessant movements and he seemed to have relaxed a little.

Natasha pulled away to a respectable distance as Shuri approached, wary of the teenager’s shit-eating grin. She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“I see you were right,” said Okoye in her rich, deep voice. She held out her fist to Shuri, depositing a few Wakandan coins that clinked into her palm. “They really are all too alike.”

“They?” Barnes asked, standing. He crossed his arm across his chest in half of the Wakandan gesture. “Bucky Barnes, ma’am. It’s an honor to meet another Dora Milaje.”

“Mmm,” Okoye hummed, looking him up and down. After a moment she clapped him on the bicep. “You are respectable, and I have heard many good things. Majda speaks well of you and I regard her opinion highly. I am Okoye.”

Barnes seemed to let out a _whoosh_ of nervous breath. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

Shuri blew a raspberry. “Ugh. So boring, this political politeness.” She stepped forward to pull Barnes down to her level, wrapping him in her skinny arms. He yelped when she pulled away, twisting his ear as she went.

“Ow! You little -” his eyes cut to Okoye, her eyebrows raised. Barnes cleared his throat of whatever curse was about to leave it. “Ahem. That hurt, Shuri.”

Natasha snorted. “I have a feeling Okoye wouldn’t mind you telling it like it is. She must spend enough time around Shuri to know.”

“Hey!” The princess objected. She tilted her wide nose into the air haughtily. “I am nothing if not well behaved, especially to esteemed members of my brother’s guard.”

“Once,” Okoye interjected, regarding the princess with a hard gaze and wry smile. “Once when she was young, Shuri glued a handful of grass to my head and teased me relentlessly.”

“When she was younger?” Barnes asked.

“She was 15. So…last year,” the warrior replied. Shuri snickered evilly. “I am…sympathetic to your struggles. She has matured very little since.”

“We know.” The two assassins said in unison.

Okoye’s eyebrow quirked again. “Well, I am glad to see you have the ability to make friends, Agent Romanoff. After reading your files, I assumed your reported charm to be a shallow tool like all your others.”

Not a single twitch to her expression. The woman was hard to read.

“Well,” Natasha began, “I’m very persistent. And don’t be so sure you know me from my files - maybe things were left out.”

 _And were there ever,_ she thought, even more aware of the tall soldier standing beside her. As if he could read her thoughts, he shuffled nervously.

“Speaking of transparency and secrets,” Barnes interjected politely, “but I’m dyin’ to know what’s going on around here. Majda wasn’t very forthcoming.”

Okoye looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. “Then she did her job.”

He stuttered and then gave up, casting his eyes downwards.

“Okoye, give him a break!” Shuri hissed dramatically. She took Barnes’s hand and patted it, gently and teasingly, as if he were a fragile heroine from a novel on the verge of swooning. “He’ is very fragile.”

Natasha stifled a laugh when Barnes sneered and jerked away from between Shuri’s small brown hands, grumbling. Shuri retreated behind the Dora Milaje, cackling.

“The information,” Barnes pressed, interrupting himself to stick out his tongue at Shuri, mirroring her gesture as she peeked out from behind the woman’s shoulder. “Before I throw her into the castle moat and get myself into trouble.”

“We don’t even _have_ a moat, you —”

Okoye pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Natasha was startled to see the beginnings of a smile pulling at her lips.

“The squabbling from the two of you would be barely indistinguishable from Shuri and T’Challa, if not for your accent,” she said to Barnes. Properly admonished, he shrugged his shoulders and flashed her a charming grin.

“Okoye, mercy. Tell us about this mission and Barnes’s new location so I can get away from these two idiots.” Natasha received two sets of glares turned on her for the comment - one brown, one gray.

The warrior held her hands up, silently agreeing to Natasha’s request. She gestured for Shuri to sit as well, and the teenager plopped down beside Barnes, kicked her feet up, and threw her backpack to the ground. There were little metal pins stuck into the fabric on the front. Natasha squinted at one that looked like an egg white and yolk with a face.

Shuri unzipped one of the pockets and pulled out a thin pane of transparent material, one of the advanced Wakandan inventions similar to the tablets that all of Barnes’s team carried. She tapped first at the beads on her wrist, and then at the corner of the rectangle. A few images appeared and then Okoye was handed the device.

“Bucky, this is where you will be staying,” the warrior said. She pinched her fingers together and then gestured as if she was tossing something into a trashcan. Landscapes of a small village along the bank of a river appeared before them, projected from the tablet. A map was next, marking a location to the southwest of Birnin Zana.

“This is one of the smaller settlements belonging to the river tribe,” Shuri cut in. She gestured at the images in front of them. “It’s mostly only used during the wetter months, so for now there will only be a family or two staying. My father knew them and so they will keep you safe as a favor to me.”

Barnes was pulling _quite_ the face; part anger, part disbelief. “Keep _me_ safe? This is a fishing community, just a couple of villagers, and you haven’t fixed my brain yet. What makes you think that I won’t —”

Shuri’s hand on his forearm cut him off as succinctly as a slap might have silenced him. Her brown eyes were warm and sad all at once. “I know you would never hurt anyone. You are not where you were even two months ago. Please trust me on this. Treat it like a vacation, do that play-survival camping thing you colonizers love so much.”

Barnes’s lips twitched into a smile. He sighed after a moment and shrugged, training his gaze back at Okoye. “Okay, boss. I get a fancy escort or what?”

Okoye smiled back at him, shaking her head. “You will have two of my guard with you during the journey. We’re making a preemptive move, so I do not expect too much trouble.” Her eyes narrowed. “Especially if you do not go looking for it.”

Barnes gave her a sardonic salute, tipping his fingers away from his temple and then pointing a finger gun at her. Shuri snickered and Natasha groaned, realizing the gesture was one the teenager had taught him.

“Now, Shuri. Would you take Barnes back to his room so I can discuss Agent Romanoff’s assignment with her?”

Shuri’s eyes narrowed, and Okoye seemed to realize her mistake immediately. “What, I’m not allowed to know about this? Bucky isn’t either?”

Okoye blew a breath out between pursed lips. “That’s not—”

The princess’s brows dropped and her jaw set. “We are staying until you’re done briefing Nat.”

“But your brother— ” Okoye tried again, only to be cut off for the second time.

“We’re staying, Okoye.” Shuri said decisively.“If this is business of the palace, I deserve to know too.”

Natasha and Barnes looked between the two of them, heads bobbing like they were watching a tennis match. While the warrior stared the princess down, the two assassins locked eyes and exchanged smirks.

 _Stubborn_ , Barnes mouthed at her.

 _Related to T’Challa,_ Natasha answered silently, and they both had to fight to stifle laughs.

“—besides, if something happens it will do for more people to know details, so a back-up plan can be formulated, right? I am just thinking about this strategically, Okoye.” Shuri finished.

“So be it,” the warrior sighed, flapping her hand. “I cannot win an argument with you anyway.” Shuri pumped her fist.

Okoye rolled her eyes and then brought her hand back up to the tablet, stirring it out of sleep mode with a wave of her palm over the surface. She tapped at the screen a few times and Natasha watched in fascination as the jumble of images before them flashed and disappeared and rotated and moved as she worked.

Finally, Okoye repeated the same pinching motion as before.

Natasha squinted. “Is that…is that a map of Siberia?”

She nodded, and zoomed into the area a little closer.

“That’s Novosibirsk, there. So this is Sakha Republic territory-” Natasha’s face fell. “You’re sending me all the way to Sakha?”

“You should be thankful that Nakia and Majda were able to piece this information together with their mission. Sergeant Barnes’s prospects for recovery would be abysmal otherwise.”

Natasha reached up and dragged a finger through the images, zooming in on a dropped pin that marked coordinates to the north east. Next to the pin was a symbol of a plane.

“There is where we will drop you. It is a few kilometers outside Novosibirsk, as close as our craft can get without alerting anyone.”

“North of Novosibirsk,” Natasha echoed. “I guess I can pick up supplies there. If that’s not my final destination, what is? Where am I even going?”

Okoye shrugged. “Novosibirsk is as far as we can get you, but your destination is a village to the northeast. It is your responsibility to get from Yakutsk from our drop point.”

“What’s waiting for me in Yakutsk?” Natasha asked dryly. “Other than a few frozen cow heads and cheap diamonds?”

She stared blankly at Natasha, as did Shuri. Barnes was the only one to snicker, quietly and muffled into his fist.

“That was - ” Natasha coughed. “Guess that was kind of a niche joke. My bad.”

“Anyway.” Okoye said. “Yakutsk has an airport that services regular flights in the area. If you want to try your luck the public way, that is. No matter how you get to Yakutsk, your second transport contact waiting nearby at the same airfield.

“Seems too easy for something so precious to Hydra,” Natasha said slowly, dreading the inevitable catch.”

“You haven’t let me get to the challenging part yet,” Okoye said, a hint of a tease in her tone. “The problem is this: the transport is unreliable. But your schedule is also very…limited.”

“Schedule as in a strict tour guide with a boring itinerary, or schedule as in -”

“As in you will have one day to get from our drop to Yakutsk, two days to get from Yakutsk to your destination to the north, and one day to retrieve the book. The informant who can take you back to us will leave at a precise time on your sixth day, so if something happens…getting back will be up to you.”

Natasha’s stomach dropped. The only way she had contact with Wakanda was because they had contacted her first.

“I’ll never get out of the goddamn Sibera missions, huh?” Natasha grumbled under her breath. “So, where’s the book?”

“Ah,” Okoye said, suddenly hesitant. “Well, that is the other part of your challenge in this assignment. There is some sort of Hydra-organized operation in the area, very secretive. Very dangerous because it is heavily guarded. We know it exists, we’re just not sure…where, exactly. Majda and Nakia have a source that claims the operation is along the Indigirka river -”

“ _Indigirka_ ,” Natasha groaned, exasperated. “You’re sending me to Oymyakon, aren’t you?”

Okoye seemed startled by her guess. “Yes. Yes, it is Oymyakon. The informant in Yakutsk can get you there, but as far as the village goes, you will have to practice your investigative skills to find the operation. On the third day at noon, the informant leaves Yakutsk, so you must be quick.”

Her eyes cut over to Barnes, who had been listening as raptly as Shuri. “I do not need to remind you how imperative it is that this book does not remain in Hydra’s hands, both for Sergeant Barnes’s sake and the world’s. If they somehow replicate that research…”

“I know,” Natasha said. “It would be bad. But time out, let’s back up to the Oymyakon part. You’ve Googled it, right? You know that’s one of the coldest inhabited places in the world?”

Okoye glared. “I do not use _Google_. And I do not control where crazy fascists set up their strange research and torture operations.”

Barnes shifted in his seat, leaning forward on his knees. “Just a second, Okoye. This facility, this operation…what else do we know about it?”

The warrior adjusted her weight almost nervously. “They…I will be frank. Villagers and some of the tourists adventurous enough to brave the climate have been disappearing. We think they’re using it as a training facility. Hydra and its forces are desperate after losing you, and when the book fell back into their hands…that’s all they need to start trying to replicate their past work.”

“Replicate their past work,” Barnes repeated slowly, and then his face paled. He turned to Natasha, staring intensely over Shuri’s head at her. “Nat - Natasha, you can’t do this. God knows what they’re doing down there, and if they’re trying to make more soldiers, or they’re experimenting with more efficient mind control methods, or - ”

“Or maybe they villagers disappearing are all young women, and they’re trying this all over again.” Natasha said, voice hard, and gestured to herself.

Barnes’s mouth snapped shut. She knew the emotion in her expression must have been on the surface, and he noticed.

“Nat,” he tried gently. “Nat it isn’t your responsibility if they are.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That isn’t what this is about.”

“But the second the possibility dawned on you, you added it to your list,” he pointed out, matching her glare. “I know you well enough to realize that. You want to help, but this…this is just too chaotic. We don’t have enough details.” He turned to Okoye. “Can’t we just wait this political stuff out? Sending a team along rather than have Natasha do it herself?”

Okoye cast her gaze away from them, something hard and sad passing over her face. Shuri twisted at the frayed edge of her denim skirt, her chipper attitude suddenly gone. She looked sullen. “We cannot be sure that this situation will play out in our favor, at the moment.”

“In our favor…You think there’s a chance T’Challa is going to lose in combat?” Natasha asked, incredulous. Shuri was no longer looking at any of them and in fact had her head turned away, leaning over the side of the couch to watch the transportation in the mines below. Natasha could see her expression mirrored in the glass reflection. She looked close to tears.

“Not necessarily,” Okoye replied carefully. “But I also would not put it past N’Jadaka to play by the rules. He would not be so confident in this grab for power if there were not forces working in his favor within the tribes. His brand of _unity_ for Wakanda will have no room for you or Agent Romanoff. We have calculated the risks and decided this is the best course of action.”

Natasha couldn’t help but look smug as she turned to Barnes with crossed arms, eyebrows raised. “You want to keep questioning my capability, or can we just assume this whole disagreement is settled?”

The soldier made a frustrated, angry sound and then threw his hand up. “Jesus, you stubborn - look, for the last time I am _not_ questioning your capability! I’m just…we’re putting all our eggs in one basket with this thing.”

“Well the alternative is… what? You stay on ice forever because they can’t uncross those wires and you think that’s the best option for everyone?” Barnes didn’t respond, and Natasha’s blood boiled hotter. “You are _not_ going to stay on ice forever! You heard Okoye, that might not even be available in the worst case scenario.”

“She _is_ right, dude.” Shuri interjected before Barnes could argue. Her voice sounded watery, but firm. “Sometimes we must accept the fact that we cannot tread the ideal path every time we begin a journey.”

At that, Barnes seemed to quiet internally. His shoulders slumped and his face relaxed. “I’m just tired of people throwing themselves in the fire for me.”

Natasha couldn’t help herself: “Oymyakon is, symbolically, just about the opposite of a fire.”

Barnes twisted to regard her, shifting into her space a little. There was chilled anger behind his gray eyes. “Christ alive, Romanoff. Always serious when you don’t need to be, and a fuckin’ comedian when you do. What’s so unacceptable about someone being concerned for you, huh? What puts you on the defensive?”

“I could ask you the same, you hypocrite.” She met his glare as startled as she was by his words, by the keen reading of her behavior and insecurities.She stepped forward, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Only one of us needs their head picked apart, Barnes. Don’t forget which one that is and stop trying to project your anxiety on me.”

“Hey, Romanoff. Fuck y—”

“Whoa!” Shuri said at the same time, jumping to her feet.

“Okay, enough!” Okoye shouted.She held her palms between them, pushing Natasha away by her shoulder. Barnes resisted a little and then gave at the pressure on his sternum. Natasha realized as he backed off, just how close they’d come to blows just then. The space had been diminishing faster than she realized, and they’d been nearly nose to nose before Okoye stepped in.

“You two,” she clucked, shaking her head. “Such poor behavior, fighting this way. I have things to attend to before the ceremony tomorrow morning. Shuri, do not be late to what we discussed. This is very serious.”

Shuri tore her eyes aware from the two assassins, both still with hackles raised and fixing each other with dirty looks from either side of Okoye. “I know. I just…I want to say goodbye to Natasha before she leaves tomorrow.”

Natasha looked away from Barnes. Goodbye to her? Tomorrow? She was leaving on this assignment so soon? She hadn’t even had an opportunity to pack a mission bag - her guns needed taken apart and cleaned, and she needed some time to herself to prepare mentally.

“Of course, Shuri.” Okoye said evenly. She turned to Natasha, still wary. “You’ll be retrieved by a palace escort early tomorrow morning. I wish you luck, Agent Romanoff. You will need it.” Putting her back to the spy, Okoye outstretched her hands and placed them on either of Barnes’s shoulders. “And you. I expect such great things from you. T’Challa’s confidence and hope lies with you, and I trust his opinion when it is given so highly of someone. I hope for the good of us all that the coming days are not as dark as we expect.”

The three of them watched the warrior retreat. There had been a pause in the training of the younger girls at the other end of the room, probably due to the volcanic argument between Natasha and Barnes, but now (after a shouted farewell to Okoye) they resumed training.

When Natasha turned her attention back, Shuri stood in front of her. She wasn’t wearing outrageously platformed shoes today, and now Natasha could tell she was just a few centimeters shorter. The princess was looking up at her with eyes that glistened with unshed tears, clutching her bag between them like a shield.

“What’s up, kid? What are you so worried for? This is run-of-the-mill for me.”

Shuri sniffled violently and drew in a shuddering breath before launching herself forward and wrapping her arms around Natasha tightly.

“Please, please be careful.” She sobbed into Natasha’s shirt, voice slightly muffled. “Please take care of yourself and please be careful.”

Natasha’s heart was doing leaps in her chest. She brought stiff hands up to rub Shuri’s back. “I will.”

The teenager pulled away after a long moment, wiping under her eyes with shaking hands. She lifted her bag up, propped on one knee, and retrieved a box from within it. “Here, this is for you. I was expecting you might have to leave, and I know they’re all looking for you, and I just…at least you can disguise yourself, make it harder for them.”

Natasha turned the box over in her hand as Shuri retrieved another identical one from her bag. There was a dark-skinned woman with bleach-white platinum hair on the front of it, smiling up from behind the brand logo.

“Do I look like a blonde to you, Shuri?” she asked teasingly, but allowed the girl to hand her the box’s twin.

“No,” Shuri sniffled. “That hair is just iconic. You can’t go running around in Russian when the world is looking for a redheaded Russian spy wanted by every government. That would be stupid.”

“It would be pretty stupid,” Barnes piped up from behind them. “But not out of character.

Natasha shot him a glare instead of responding, and tucked the boxes of dye into her own bag she had brought down with her.

“You’re about to feel so guilty for that, because that reminded me of something,” Natasha shot back. She fished the glossy black tablet from the bag, wrapped in layers of tissue with his dog tags attached to the front, and handed it to him. “Here. Steve wanted me to give you this.”

Barnes took it with a frown, turning the package over several times. “I — what —”

“It’s a gift, idiot,” Shuri said, sounding awestruck and impatient at the same time. Natasha didn’t like the intensity with which she was regarding the exchange. “Just take it.”

“Steve and a few of the others loaded it with stuff to catch you up to speed. To keep you busy, stuff to just…make the transition easier for you.”

“The others?” Barnes asked.

Natasha squirmed a little, nervous. “Sam, Wanda, even Thor. He saw your arm on the news and thought it looked cool.”

Barnes was still regarding her with an odd expression.

“I — there’s some classical stuff on there too, some recorded concerts and albums I’ve collected over the years. There are a few good songs, stuff from the 80s punk scene and more modern things, I thought you might enjoy a taste from everything you’ve missed.”

Shuri looked positively star-struck, her hands clasped together as she watched. Barnes just looked…shaken.

“Thank you. Romanoff, I don’t know what to say.” He murmured, already using his finger to scroll through everything.

Natasha flapped her hand, aware how hot her face felt. _What a bipolar conversation this had become,_ she thought stupidly.

Shuri caught Natasha’s elbow. “Do you mind if I have a moment with Bucky? I just want to make sure he’s going to be okay, and I…well it’s embarrassing, I’ve already embarrassed myself enough tonight.”

Natasha looked between them and nodded, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“No problem.” She said, trying not to feel morose at being left out. At not having a chance to say goodbye to him. She was more frightened at the prospects of this mission than she cared to admit. “I’ll go get some more details for tomorrow and…see you when I see you. Stay safe.”

She felt like she was leaving much more than the room behind as she walked away.

 

* * *

 

The midnight hour was what his ma used to call it - sometimes when it wasn't even midnight. Bucky looked down at his watch: 3:17 am. He winced, and stepped off the elevator on the floor Shuri had directed him to.

The quarters was easy enough to find. She’d decorated the doorstep with a mat printed with ‘ _welcome_ ’ in Wakandan and two heavy-looking potted ferns. He couldn’t help but smile and shake his head, thinking how fortunate he was to see this soft persona of hers. He raised his knuckles to the wall and rapped lightly. If she answered…he didn’t know what he would say. If she didn’t, it was almost better — it meant she was asleep, or gone already. It might hurt to know their parting was a little less nice than he would have wanted it to be, but at least it wasn’t…Odessa.

 _You didn’t shoot to kill,_ his brain repeated back. It echoed in his skull like a ghost. _You didn’t shoot to kill._

 _But you_ always _shoot to kill._

Natasha came into view as the door to her apartment slid open. There was some kind of upbeat, floaty string music playing in the room behind her, wafting into the hallway and hypnotizing him with the melody. She was wearing a pair of worn jeans and a black t-shirt that, accompanied with the music, distracted him long enough for her to speak first.

“Barnes? I thought you would have left by now.”

“No, I wanted to come apologize before tomorrow morning. Tonight was stressful.”

Natasha leaned against the door, crossing her arms. For the first time he realize that her hair was no longer red. He liked the red.

“I’m sorry to show up this late, I just wanted to…”

Her mouth twitched. “Cute. Think it’s that easy to apologize, that I can absolve you of that guilt before you leave?”

Fuck, this woman really knew how to push his buttons and get under his skin. Bucky felt his temper roll threateningly, and took a deep breath.

“Nat,” he said slowly. She spooked so easily sometimes, and he didn’t want that wall going back up. Now now, not after this, not when she’d just let it down enough to show him something so vulnerable. She looked up at him with those poison-green eyes, curious. “Nat, is it possible…that we worked together? Did we know each other before Odessa? I can’t -”

Something strange happened to her expression, the change so sudden that it crushed him. He cursed himself, swearing internally, and she pushed away from the frame and from him.

“I don’t think so,” she said dismissively. Her voice had gone neutral and cold once again. “I think I would remember fighting with the Iron Giant. Or fighting against him.”

Her head did that little tilt that made her look dangerous and approachable all at once. He’d have to look up yet another reference, he realized with a sigh.

“All I’m saying is…the Winter Soldier was never trained to injure.”

She observed him for a moment and then nodded, hair bobbing against her chin. “Yeah, I get what you mean. It’sjust…” Here, she interrupted herself to bite her lip, eyes cast down to the floor in silent regard. The pause lasted so long that he started to think the conversation had reached its end right then and there. “I have to get up early, Barnes. This isn’t a good time to do this.”

“Then when _is?_ ” he asked, sounding more desperate and wild than he intended. Natasha stared at him, eyes wide. “When is? Natasha, I know you aren’t telling me something here.”

“I guess,” she finally said, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, “I guess it’s possible. Department X, Hydra, the KGB…they had enough connection. It’s not crazy to assume they wanted to do a little interdepartmental work.”

A dry, hollow laugh escaped him. “Can you imagine the bureaucracy?”

Silence stretched between them once again. He had to break it, keep her talking - this felt like progress, as uncomfortable as it was. “When do you think…”

“Well, they - I assume they put you through that dethaw setting whenever they needed you. That was usually for a length of a mission?” She watched him with those cool, calculating eyes. “Can you remember the first time you woke up?”

His throat tightened. He started to imagine wind whipping at his cheeks, the sensation of falling, hypothermia pulling him under. He could remember, but he made it a habit to try not to.

“Yeah,” he said anyway, swallowing past the anxiety. “Yeah. Only a few months after they got me all squared away. Brain damage must have helped ‘em, because I was still resisting.”

“Hm,” Natasha mused, sounding distant. “That was around, what, 1946? It’s certainly possible.”

“Probably. I only mentioned it because…y’know. Like you said, I didn’t shoot to kill.” He frowned as he gestured to her side. “I should have, if we were fightin’ on opposite sides. Odessa…you’d defected by then.”

Her arms came up to cross firmly. He could sense the metaphorical barrier going back up with the motion, and kicked himself for not realizing how sore these memories probably were for her. Hell, mentioning the scar would be traumatic enough.

“Hey,” he said as gently as he could. She flinched when he reached out to squeeze her shoulder and he let his hand drop, trying not to take her chilled demeanor personally. “Hey. Natasha, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up the bad shit. You’re right, okay? Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter. We’re good.”

Her throat worked oddly and her eyes cut away for a split second before they landed back on him.

“We’re good,” she echoed.

That unique silence fell between them once again, neither awkward or tense. Natasha had turned her body, angled away from him, and she had that determined expression she always got when she’d made up her mind about something. He fingered the chain he had stashed in his back pocket and thought of the misery she’d probably be in the next few days: the stress, the dangers Okoye had warned about, the traumatic memories the facility would no doubt haunt her with. He thought about how fast she had accepted the mission, no hesitation in her selflessness, her desire to help. He thought about the tablet she’d handed over, all of the lovingly curated data it held from people who cared for him. He wondered if she knew she had people who cared for her just as much. Natasha was kinder than she let on, and she was about to submit herself to a hellish situation for him. He couldn’t let her go without…

“Wait.” He blurted. Natasha stopped mid-stride, just a few steps away. She turned to look at him with confusion written across her face, her hand still poised in the air as she waved goodbye. It dropped to her side. “Natasha, hold on.”

“Don’t even think about asking me to stow you away. You heard what Majda and Shuri said - this is too dangerous for you.”

He grimaced. “I heard them. It’s not that. It’s just…” His fingers closed around the chain, pulled it from his pocket. “I - you’re doing this for me, to help me. I just think that…I think that you should take these with you.”

He held his palm out, fist curled toward the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her directly.

“These?” She asked, but she reached towards his fist anyway. He opened his fingers, cautious, and then metal clinked together as the chain fell and caught around her outstretched fingers. “These — oh. Oh.”

His dog tags, weathered but still glittering modestly under the fluorescent lights, swayed in the space between them. The sturdy metal chain had caught the crook of her index finger, and he watched as she curled the others. She fished the rectangle from the air and arranged it gently her palm. The rectangle was turned on the wrong side and she turned it over to stare at the raised surface. The gravity of his gesture suddenly hit him, and with the weight of her silence, his nerves began to crumple. His chest felt odd and heavy.

“I can’t take this,” she said, voice soft. His fist closed around hers before she could stop it, closing her fingers around the tag. He pushed gently but with enough force to get his point across. “I - I can’t —”

“C’mon, Nat.” He cajoled, aware that the shaky grin he sported likely looked more embarrassed than charismatic. His voice sounded suspiciously close to cracking and he cleared his throat desperately. “Please. These are good luck, y’know. They _gotta_ be, especially for dumbasses in frigid environments. I fell, froze my ass off, got cut up by Nazis…I’m still here. They’re lucky.”

She was staring at him now, a strange expression on her face. “Are you trying to say I need luck?”

A dry laugh caught in his throat. “No, no. I swear. You’re capable as all hell, wouldn’t get sent on a mission like this if you weren’t. I just - I’m not trying to say you need luck, I’m trying to say -”

“Spit it out, Barnes,” she interrupted, something in her tone gone hard and high and almost _fearful_. He watched as she went through the process of pushing it all down, a false grin covering up that moment of transparency. “Spit it out.”

He was quiet, staring down at her. She didn’t look away, green eyes darting between his, surveying him. His shoulders relaxed and he sighed before reaching up to shove hair out of his face.

“I know you hate shit like this, but I’m going to get soft on you for a second. You - Natasha, your friendship…it means a lot to me. This past month coulda gone real bad, and I was expecting it to. But you’ve helped a whole lot, much more than I’m capable of expressing. That means something to me.” He took a deep, shuddery breath. “I’m just trying to say…I - we all need you to be careful out there…but especially me. You’re - you’ve done a lot. More than you ever had to, really. This is way more trouble than I ever expected someone to go through for me. Just to _help_ me. Steve’s one thing, him and that thick fuckin’ skull of his, but -”

“But?” Natasha interrupted hotly. She sounded angry, and when he dragged his eyes from his feet she had her hands on her hips and a _livid_ expression on her face. “What, you think there’s a quota for people who care about you? You think that’s capped at one?”

Mouth agape, he shook his head. “No, just…God, you’re something else, Romanoff. You know that?”

“I’ve been called a hell of a lot worse.”

“I bet you have, with that mouth.” He teased. “Listen, though: I’m serious. Dead serious. I want you to hold onto this, okay? Before, my job was always to back my team up. This time I can’t watch your six, so I gotta be useful somehow. I’d kick myself if - ” He paused, tense, and flushed at his words. “Christ, I know it’s stupid. Don’t harp on me for it. It’s some superstitious shit, so I get it if -”

“James Buchanan Barnes, shut up.” Natasha interjected firmly, leaving no room for argument. He watched as she untangled the chain in her fist and slipped it over her newly-dyed hair. She lifted the hair at her neck out of the way and tucked the chain into her shirt, and then aimed a smile at him. “You’re an idiot. Wanting to protect people you care about is never stupid. If it means this much to you, I’ll take it with me.”

He - well. He didn’t know what to say to that, and he was aware that he was just outright _staring_ at her, this obstinate, pragmatic, amazing woman before him. She’d agreed to wearing his tags - it’d been what he was hoping for, but he never expected to feel so strongly about it. Now that he knew they were resting just over her heart, _his_ name…

He shuddered at the idea. In a different time, in a different world, had his story ended differently, he would have given the tags to someone special back home. He wrote to a few girls during the war, as was expected of him, but nothing had ever been serious enough for this. The tags…they were a part of him, weren’t they? A piece of his past, a piece of the soul of a man who had died a long time ago. And he was handing them to someone - someone that he cared about, someone that he trusted, someone that he — 

Oh.

“I’ll take good care of them, Barnes, don’t worry.” Natasha said. She stepped forward into his space and he had to hold himself very still, stop himself from bolting at the realization. Coupled with the way her small arms slide around his ribs, the settling of her temple against his chest, and he felt so strung-out and out of his skin, felt like he might burst into pieces at any moment.

_Oh no. Oh no, Barnes, oh no. Your timing — you fucking idiot._

Bucky forced his arms to come up, but he also had to hold himself back. He felt so at odds, discordantly thrilled and somber and heavy-hearted all at the same time. Would this be the last time he’d see Natasha Romanoff?

“I _will_ get that book, James.” She said fiercely. Her face was still pressed close in his jacket, but he heard his name loud and clear - the first time she’d ever called him that, without the cold aside of his last name following. “I’ll get that book and we’ll get them out of your head one way or another.”

Bucky stood for a very long time on her doorstep, staring at closed door, staring at the spot she had just been, and realized how completely and absolutely _fucked_ he was if she made it back.

 _If she made it back_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another trigger warning for canon-typical violence, blood, and depictions of trauma. 
> 
> On another note: almost there, y'all!

“Through the mimicry,

remember

the defining feature

of an echo:

 

her inevitable fade.”

\- Unknown

* * *

 

Natasha knew what it was, to be unmade. She had been whittled down, sharpened, scrubbed to her core. She thought of herself in stages to keep from being overwhelmed: before, during, and after.The before mattered the least, the more she thought about it. Gone forever, something carved out of her never to be seen again. She had never known it, so it hurt the least to miss.

The during…that was what haunted her. It was marred with horrible evils and regrets.

But as dark as it was, there was a third. There was an after.

So, yes. She knew how it felt to be unmade. But she also knew it was important not to lose the things she had fought for. The little pieces she’d stolen away, tucked within herself to keep and cherish. The before and during…she would never get those back. Sure, she mourned the loss of them. But she couldn’t dwell: they were only two of three. And the third? The _after?_ That was the most important part of Natasha Romanoff.

 

In the New York Avengers headquarters, Wanda had started a small garden of sorts. Natasha could remember it as if from a lifetime ago. Some of her fondest memories were there, in the humidity amongst the exotic ferns and tropical plants. She could recall quiet afternoons spent sipping cups of keemun with Wanda. The two of them would sit in the tiny, hot room that had been converted into a greenhouse, and they would talk for hours.

One of her favorite plants was a small fern that Wanda kept on a simple clay pot situated on top of an antique tea table in the corner. The story, as Wanda had told it, began after one of her first missions as an official member of the team. The planet had cried out to her, she claimed, over the thread of connection she had to living things. When she investigated the call, she found it growing from between cracks in the concrete of a decimated building, resilient in its quest to find the sun. To find the light.

 

 _“It reminded me of someone,”_ _the young witch said. Her dark eyes cut over to Natasha almost impishly, daring her to react to the theatrical metaphor._

_“Oh?” Natasha responded, sipping her tea. She played quite well at puzzlement, and she didn’t want to give Wanda any validation at lumping her into some melancholic analogy of trauma and rebirth.“I can’t imagine who that could possibly be.”_

_Wanda’s face cracked into a smile, and then it flickered into something quite serious._

_“I feel it, you know,” she intoned solemnly. Her slim brown fingers danced in the air, conjuring a scarlet gleam of energy._

_Every time Wanda used her magic, the hair on Natasha’s neck stood on end. She was good friends with an otherworldly god, she had killed countless aliens, fought abominations and creatures and people with powers so strange that they hurt to think about. But Wanda’s power was…different. It felt familiar and incongruous to the world as it functioned, chaotic and harmonious all at once._

_“The fern?” Natasha asked._

_Wanda smiled again. “The fern, yes. Every cell that makes it what it is. If I concentrate enough, I could tell you the spore it sprouted from, the exact separation of atoms in the concrete that allowed it to bloom.”_

_Natasha paused for a very long moment, contemplating this, before she said: “You scare me sometimes, Wanda. That’s some Lovecraftian shit. That’s…blatant cosmic horror. You’re an old god or something.”_

_“No,” the younger woman said. She turned her gaze from her hand to look at Natasha, fingers slipping shut. The magic dissipated. “No. I am a survivor. I would be foolish not to commune with other survivors, no matter how insignificant they might be.” Her gaze softened. “Or feel.”_

_Natasha grimaced and with a sigh, set her tea cup aside. “Are we doing this now?”_

_“I am not doing anything. I want you to set aside your cynicism and be silly with me for a moment. Humor me.” Wanda moved from her seat, crystals and rings and her precious Star of David pendant clinking together as she moved. She was wearing a black chiffon blouse, hand-embroidered with Romani designs, and a pair of airy culottes Natasha suspected she has “borrowed” from Janet’s closet. Wanda looked as though she was blinking in and out of reality with the way she glided so effortlessly within the space. As she drew closer Natasha picked up the warm and familiar scent of her favorite perfume wafted from her thick hair; it mixed flawlessly with the sharp tang of ozone she always carried._

_“You strive for the sunlight each day, Natasha,” the witch said. She pulled Natasha up by her hands, lacing their fingers together carefully. Her smile was soft and kind. “You persist despite the struggle. You work so hard.” Wanda pressed her palm to Natasha’s cheek, and her eyes began to sting without warning._

_“T-that’s — so clichéd and corny,” Natasha stammered, trying to hide her startled tears._

_Wanda only smiled at her still, always that smile._

_“I — I…” A tear crested and fell down her cheek. “Oh, damn you. I just wanted to drink some tea and now you have me blubbering over how hard I work to feel as though I’m good enough to be categorized with the rest of you._

_“Poor Natasha.” Wanda softly cooed, laughing like a bell as she pulled Natasha into a hug. “How we bully you. But you do belong… here with us, in the sunlight.”_

 

Natasha paused, the duffle bag she’d been packing for her mission forgotten by the door. Now she simply stared out over the Wakandan skyline towards the misty, dense jungle. She shook herself from the memory and swiped her thumb under her eye, grumbling when it came back wet.

So yeah, she’d been feeling a little saccharine lately. Sue her. She was entitled to it, certainly now more than ever.

Sometimes she needed to remind herself of that little fern in the greenhouse. She needed to think of the impromptu road trips with Clint, of Steve surprising her with visits to old-school dance halls, of Sam dragging her to the newest over-dramatic, unoriginal exhibition of the newest arrogant Queens artist. She needed the early Sunday mornings teaching Thor the difference between mimosas and bloody marys, she needed the secretive tell-anyone-and-I’ll-kill-you drunk karaoke sessions with Nick. Lately, she’d come to rely on late night philosophical with T’Challa that morphed into therapeutic discussions about their anxieties, desires, and fears. She needed Steve’s warm, golden-boy advice. She needed Sam’s smile, Wanda’s honesty. She needed Clint, his unshakeable loyalty.

Natasha needed these memories to feel human. They reminded her of who she had become - who she had allowed herself become.

She could not have her before, but Natasha could have her after _._ She would carve out her after just as they had tried to cut it from her, and she would do it if she had to fight with bloodied knuckles and broken bones for it.

To strive for the sunlight, to show the Red Room and all the bastards who had hurt her that she had survived for a reason. There was a strength they could not cut away. In fact, their meddlinghardened the scar tissue.

She took these thoughts with her, held them tight to her insides like a bulletproof vest, as she retraced her steps from so long ago across the Wakandan airstrip. One of T’Challa’s personal crafts was waiting for her, gleaming even in the dim light.

The sun wasn’t out yet, but Natasha would chase it down. There were people counting on her, and she would not let any obstacle stand in her way. The evils that took her from herself would never hurt another soul. Not if she had a say — not ever again.

A scar was, after all, not evidence of a mistake. A scar was proof of survival.

 

 

“So, what’s your name?” She asked, mostly just to kill the silence. The pilot of the Wakandan ship was a tall, burly older man with umber skin. He had shining golden tattoos that laced around his bare biceps, and there they climbed like metallic vines, clinging to each dip of flesh and muscle as they wound up his throat.It had been a little over an hour into their journey, and the nerves were threatening to get the best of her (if the tap-tap-tap of her fingers on her thigh had anything to say about it). A little conversation wouldn’t hurt.

“That information is not pertinent to your mission,” the pilot replied. He sounded neither angry nor cold, only matter-of-fact. However, he did glance over his shoulder at her and she thought he looked somewhat amused. “All you need to worry about is getting to your destination and getting back to me in time.”

Natasha shifted her weight from foot to foot, swallowing down a sigh. She hated feeling vulnerable.“Message received.”

There was another long period of silence between them as the ship weaved in the air. Natasha wandered back onto the bridge, and kept her eye on the pilot as she went. The disc-like hull of the aircraft opened at either end with cut-outs in the walls, and if she turned her head either way she could see both the storage area near the engines and the brightly lit cockpit. Coming to terms with the fact that her temporary traveling companion wasn’t going to be a great conversational partner, Natasha scanned the huge communications array situated in the center of the bridge. The display looked like glass, but she supposed it was closer to a transparent vibranium alloy. If it had been two hundred years ago on the Wakandan technological timeline, it might have been called a hologram. This was something much more advanced. On it, suspended about five feet in the air, was a transparent image of the ship’s flight path.

“Wow,” Natasha marveled aloud. “We left an hour ago and we’re already halfway done crossing the Red Sea. Even DC to Newark is, like, fifty minutes.”

“How far is that distance?” the pilot asked, startling her.

Natasha shrugged. “I’d say about 200 miles, give or take a few. By car it’s about four hours, if the traffic is nice.”

The pilot scoffed at that. “By _car._ ” He said, as if she had just told him she commuted to work via horse and buggy. He peered back at her once more with dark, lustrous eyes. “I hope you are ready for an even longer commute once we reach—” he stumbled here, tasting the unfamiliar word on his tongue, “Novosibirsk.”

Natasha hummed a soft laugh, shaking her head. “Yakutsk is nearly 70 hours away by car. If I want to stick to schedule, I’ll have to find a plane there.”

Her pilot was silent for a moment. He seemed to be studying her reflection in the sleek windshield.

“Agent Romanoff, I understand the nature of the mission that waits for you. Some are not as keen as I to aid outsiders, and truly I was not so open-minded not long ago. But I have seen the work you do outside Wakanda, the good things. I have served the royal line for many years. T’Chaka, may he find peace, and his Majesty and Princess Shuri. They speak highly of you.” He waved his hand in a variety of movements, and the ship shuddered as it transitioned into a sort of autopilot state. He came closer and Natasha realized he must be at least seven feet tall. “And so I trust that you are worth their praise. This is a noble mission, but the odds are not in your favor — I will do everything in my power to ease your path.”

Natasha was stunned into silence, her crossed arms fallen limply to her sides halfway through his heartfelt speech. “I —”

The pilot rolled his shoulders back. “I will wait as long as I can for your return in six days time.”

And with that, he turned away back to his seat and gestured again. The ship shuddered gently once more, and silence rested between them just the same.

Natasha fell asleep at some point in the journey, her tablet forgotten on the bench of her knees. She woke as the craft took a sharp turn, changing trajectory sudden enough to send her tablet careening to the ground. Jostled and half-awake, she nearly shrieked out as the floor came up to meet her too.

“Apologies,” called the pilot. “Brace yourself. There has been a craft trailing us since we reached the border. I do not know how they saw past our shielding technology.”

Natasha rolled to her feet, moving briskly towards the cockpit. Several screens around the pilot showed various angles of a jet behind them, unmarked and inky-black as it cut through the sky.

As Natasha watched her pilot try to outmaneuver and lose the craft, a loud warning beep rang from the controls before them. The pilot swore in Wakandan, and then he reached backwards and shoved Natasha away.

She stumbled and fell backwards, thrown off balance from the surprising speed. “Hey —”

“Quiet!” He shouted, and with a gesture she hadn’t yet seen, the ship began to shudder again.

At the Avengers compound, Pietro Maximoff would often carry around a little metallic cube puzzle. It had pieces that slid together in ways that seemed impossible, and he would fiddle with it whenever there was downtime to be had.

Natasha thought of that impossible puzzle now as the Wakandan ship folded and twisted like a piece of origami. The floor beneath her feet moved, the plates and hinges sliding away and together as the cockpit seemed to detach several feet from the hull. She watched in amazement as it began moving away, up and over the top of the hull. It disappeared from view, and she realized the subtle sounds of metal brushing together below her, smooth like a symphony, was the back half of the ship. The two ends had switched places, and the pilot was now encased in a heavily armored cockpit. A device dropped from a panel above him, a shining lens that fit just in front of his eye. He was gesturing wildly to control the ship as it stayed on-course, the movements fluid like a dance. There was another low, grinding noise from the ship, and Natasha turned her attention: on either side of the glass enclosure the pilot sat behind, two long barrels of some sort of weapon had molded themselves from within the exterior paneling.

Preemptively she braced herself, fingers curling around one of the control panels. Just in time, too, because the whole of their ship shook violently. A flash of blue light nearly blinded her and then the following  _boom!_ had her ears ringing.The jet that had been trailing them exploded in a bright, fiery blast. Molten metal bits pinged harmlessly off the cockpit window as the craft was disintegrated mid-air.

She was quiet as the ship righted itself and the pilot returned to his original side of the ship. The lens had retracted back into the panel in the ceiling and he was studying what looked to be blueprints of the jet, displayed before him in the beaded 3D vibranium imaging technology Shuri liked to show off. She moved to stand by the side of his chair and ignoring his quizzical look, reached out to touch the jet's wing. The vibranium beads shifted around her finger like liquid sand, retracting back into formation when she pulled away.

“That was a stolen jet, Russian-made.”

“Figured." She responded with a sigh. "I knew there was no way I'd get out of this one saying 'well that was easy'. We know who stole it? Or even who the pilot was?”

He shook his head, but turned to look at her. “I would not be surprised if it was your Hydra or Department X anticipating our arrival.”

“You know quite a lot for a pilot.” Natasha pointed out. 

The previously inscrutable expression on his face broke for just a moment. He smiled, a wide toothy thing that made Natasha realize his canines had been filed into needle-sharp points and tipped with what she assumed was polished vibranium.

“It is true that I have only been a simple pilot for a few years. Before that, I was a War Dog.”

Natasha studied him. “I met one of you. Nakia, back in the palace. Should have figured you were a spy.” The man shrugged, still grinning. “Retired, anyway. So, this jet, was it alone?”

“Hydra has fallen considerably in the last few years. You Avengers are to thank for that. There are some outposts and splinter groups holding out, and we can assume this belonged to one of them...but I do not think they are capable of producing more, given their diminished power."

Natasha sighed. “Great. They'll be pissed with me for stepping their toy.”

“Probably,” the Wakandan spy said mildly. “But that is one less toy for you to deal with on your own, yes?”

This time, she met his sharp, dangerous grin with one of her own.

“Yes,” she agreed, and then strode across the bridge to perch herself in the copilot’s chair. “One less toy.”

 

They parted in a field in the rural outskirts of Novosibirsk.

“If it is too dangerous here, there is an auto repair to the south. The fields behind it are where I will wait.” The pilot smiled. “Your plan B, should you need it.”

With that, he strode back up the ramp of the craft. Natasha watched, hands cupped over her brow bone to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sun, as the shielding technology turned on, and it was lose to her. She assumed it rose into the air and disappeared into the sky, and that she would only see it again after her mission.

 _If,_ Natasha thought. _If she survived the mission._

 

Her next destination was a clump of houses and shops further along the road.

 _Bet Shuri can get me some of that cloaking tech,_ Natasha thought as she trudged through knee-high grass. _I’d be unstoppable._

In the first home on the winding dirt street, a two-story that was falling apart brick by brick, a suspicious looking young woman with a toddler propped on her hip greeted Natasha. Her face softened slightly when Natasha dropped the hood of her sweatshirt, revealing innocent, wide eyes.

<“Hello. What do you want?”> The young woman asked, giving Natasha a careful once-over. The baby gurgled and cooed, pawing at the screen door between them, and its mother put a protecting palm over its side.

<“My name is Irina, from Volgograd. My car broke down a few miles back down the road and my cell phone has died. Do you have a telephone I could use?”>

The young woman’s eyes narrowed slightly — there were laugh lines around her mouth and the beginning of wrinkles around her eyes, but she could not have been older than her early twenties. Natasha placed her around twenty-one. She bumped the toddler on her hip, but did not open the door for Natasha. <“Volgograd. You are a long way from home.”>

Natasha shrugged, and averted her eyes like she was close to tears. “<My youngest sister moved to Yakutsk a year ago and met a boy. I missed her wedding and the birth of her first child. She will be in labor any day now with her second. Please, can I use your phone to buy a plane ticket? I’m not sure I’ll make it in time, with my car out of commission and the rest of the trip ahead.>”

The girl stared at her for a long moment. Then, she undid a lock on the inside of the screen door and motioned Natasha inside. <“Yakutsk is a long way. My sister went to the United States for university. I have not seen her in seven years.”>

Natasha frowned and reached up to caress the toddler’s head… then snatched it back like she’d been burned. She feigned a sheepish grin. <“I’m sorry, force of habit. What’s his name?”>She followed the girl into the modest kitchen where a huge tub of water sat heating above a traditional, Soviet-era cooking stove.

<“She is Irina, also.”>The girl laughed. Natasha gave the toddler a wide grin from behind her mother’s back, as she bent to plug in the cord for the phone. <“How embarrassing. We have blackouts often, and sometimes it helps to have things unplugged. Have you been to the States?”>

Natasha thanked her for the phone and cradled it to her ear as she shook her head. The girl pulled a piece of paper from one of the kitchen drawers, pointing to the number of a man named Sasha.

<“Funny name for an airport.”>

<“My uncle’s business. He lives in Yakutsk, transports tourists and journalists and other idiots up into the north when they want. He’s in town picking up supplies this week. He will be happy to have a customer and he might help me with some money for next month’s groceries for bringing one to him.”>The girl winked. <“So it is not an entirely altruistic decision.”>

Natasha pinched at the baby’s stomach as the phone crackled to life, and a gruff voice came through moderate static.

<“Uncle Sasha.”> The girl said. <“I have someone here who could use your services.”>

 

After she as done arranging her trip — Sasha could not be in Novosibirsk for another hour and a half — Natasha sat down with the girl and her child in the living room, surrounded by hand-me-down toys.

The girl, who introduced herself as Yekaterina, watched Natasha over her cracked coffee cup as Irina squirmed on her lap.

<“You’re brave for traveling alone. Why didn’t you bring your husband with you?”>

Natasha laughed throatily.<“I’m not married.”>

Yekaterina’s eyes sparkled mischievously.<“A boyfriend, then?”>

She shot the younger girl an equally impish look, and before she could process the words leaving her mouth, she said:<“Does an American count?”>

Yekaterina giggled wildly, covering her mouth with the hand that wasn’t balancing Irina on her knee.<“Oh! It’s been awhile since I had another woman to gossip with. Tell me about him, and I’ll tell you about Irina’s father.”>

Natasha blushed rather spectacularly, much to her new companion’s amusement. <“Well, we are in a bit of a…slump, right now. The Americans, they say 'we're  _off'_.” > Her mouth curled into a uncontrollable smirk that sent Yekaterina into even wilder giggles, emboldening Natasha. <“But when we were _on…_ —”> She danced her eyebrows, and this time it was Yekaterina who blushed.

 

Sasha arrived just shy of twenty minutes late, and Natasha said a quick but heartfelt farewell to Katya and little Irina. She tried not to linger, because the guilt would eat her away otherwise:her pockets were full of rubles and euros carefully swiped from Katya’s purse when she wasn’t looking, from under the couch, from the jewelry box in her room. She’d left enough for the pair to eat for another few weeks, but she had no doubt that the young woman would be angrily telling tales of the redheaded harpy who stole her money _and_ her daughter’s name for years to come.

Sasha was a short, round, old man with a gut to put all others to shame and a limb that had Natasha instinctively reaching out to catch him just in case. He was quiet, which she appreciated after all the chattering she’d just done, and he helped Natasha stow her small duffle bag (stuffed with Katya’s money, Shuri’s improved weaponry, meager food supplies, and her Widow suit) in the compartment above her seat in the cockpit.

“You. Where?” Sasha asked in heavily accented English.

Natasha blinked at him. “I’m Russian.”

The old man _tsked_ and shook his head. “Smell like Americans.”

 _Great_ , Natasha thought dryly. “Okay… well, I need to get to Oymyakon.”

Sasha grunted and shook his head. “Yakutsk as far as we go.”

“Fine,” she sighed, irritated. She’d been hoping to avoid another stop. There went any hopes of shaving a day off her allocated six. “Yakutsk. How long?”

He held up three fingers.

Natasha let her head fall back against the seat with a grunt. “Wake me in Yakutsk, then.”

 

_She dreams._

_Katya dies under her hands, her face a mask of Anya._

_Irina cries and cries and then screams, and then she screams no more. Natasha carves a path through the country she used to call her home, her motherland. She washes it clean with crimson, and arrives at the a great metal door in the mountains. It opens and she anticipates the climax of all of her work, all of the lifeblood from her victims, all of her training and her sacrifice. The door opens, and it is the Red Room’s facility. Checkered floors, mahogany walls, and then she is walking down a long corridor._

_“You’re ready to graduate. This is your graduation ceremony. You will be a true Widow after this. Your final mission, Natasha. Your final kill.” The voice is familiar and feminine, one of her handlers._

_She opens the final rusted door, and in the darkness there is one spotlight. It falls, collecting the dust in the air, onto a figure in the center of the room. Restrained with chains to the floor, arms and legs bound, is Natasha._

_Someone presses a gun into her hand. Each of her steps forward make her feel like she’s stuck in molasses. She is resisting, and resistance was unacceptable. Eventually she stands in front of herself, a pale and pathetic version. She presses the gun against her own forehead — such a strange sensation —_

_“Pull the trigger, little spider.” Her handler says._

_She does._

 

Natasha woke with a start, suddenly aware that she was drenched in sweat and shaking. Sasha looked at her, barely any change in his whisker-covered expression.

<“Good timing.”>He said. “Yakutsk is there.”

The cathedral was what Natasha saw first when she looked out the tiny window. It rose from the frozen ground, a golden monolith capped with gleaming snow. From the air and the distance, it glimmered like a mirage. Its edges seemed to dance, foggy and incorporeal, and even though she knew better, she imagined it could reach out in alabaster tendrils, imagined that it had sent the shiver that raced down her spine.

Natasha shuddered once more and rolled her eyes. She’d been listening to Wanda and her stories too much. She stood in the tiny space and then carefully moved towards the back of the plane, balancing unsteadily as Sasha brought them down to land. Already feeling the nip of cold, northern air against her skin, she fished her parka from her bag and shrugged it on.

“Expensive,” Sasha commented when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She didn't like the glint she saw there. 

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him and zipped the outer layer up. “An American bought it for me,” she lied easily. 

Sasha, for the first time, looked at her fully. There was something rough and cruel in his gaze. His thin lips curled into a rotten grin. Her senses were screaming at her, but the old man still landed the plane with ease, and if her legs shook when she darted towards the door and onto the asphalt, no one but Sasha would ever know.

“Бог дал, Бог и взял,” he sneered at her through the window of the cockpit. He didn’t even allow her any clearance before the plane started up with a rough groan. Sasha’s voice, shouting above the noise: “But the taiga takes even more.”

Natasha darted out of the way, rolling onto her shoulder to avoid the wheels as the old man maneuvered effortlessly and pulled his plane into the air. 

She watched the fading speck on the horizon until the wind began to sting her lips.

 

Yakutsk was beautiful, but cold. The people more so. Natasha hadn’t lived in Russian for many, many years; as _native_ as she looked in her fur-lined coat, _pavlopasadsky_ shawl, and _ushanka_ , something gave her away each time she tried to start a conversation. She'd clearly lost her touch in her absence. 

“American,” one man said in the metro as he spit at her feet. Another approached him with raised fists and drunken stumbling as he shouted something about respect. Natasha slipped into the crowed before it could collapse on the dramatic scene. It was good to see that despite how long she'd been gone, some things hadn't changed. 

Eventually, she found someone willing to talk to her. They pointed her towards a winding side road in the eastern edge of the city, one which humbly boasted a five-room hotel. When she arrived, she was met with more bad news. Oymyakon, the old woman at the counter said, was a twenty hour drive — and that was time Natasha didn’t really want to waste.

<“If you are a tourist, an adventurous type, you might stay until next week. There’s a tour guide to the north that comes every other Tuesday —">

<“I’m not a tourist,”> Natasha interrupted, swinging her bag off her shoulders and onto the counter with a thump. She dug through it, looking for the stack of cash that she’d taken from Katya. 

And...Her tablet was missing. Panicking, Natasha checked and rechecked each pocket, finding that part of her arsenal (a dagger, two tear gas pellets, most of her miniature explosives, and her  _goddamn_ grappling hook) had been picked through as well. _Sasha_ , she thought as her lipped curled, clearly worrying the old women behind the counter. 

<“You know, you can pay with card. I have one of those little machines, we are not so isolated from the world as they claim.”> The old woman said. Natasha glared at her.

<“Here. Cash is always better. There’s a bonus in there— I want to take some supplies and a map, if you have one.”>

The old woman _did_ have a map, and she had over a week’s worth of food, along with a heat blanket and quality camping supplies. Natasha packed up and clambered into the Lada Riva, tossing her pack into the passenger seat that smelled of goats and something else that she wasn’t willing to dwell on. She dropped her head on the uncomfortable back seat, feeling the frustration rise. She'd been so stupid to fall asleep around someone she didn't know. Months ago, she never would have considered it. It was all the more proof that Wakanda had made her soft, that she'd lost her touch with the reality of her work in the last few years. It was going to be a rough mission without her arsenal. Although... the one bright spot in this development that her new gear from Shuri had been on her person, and she still had her dual pistols. Natasha's grip on the wheel tightened and she jerked the key.

It failed to catch, stalled, and then the whole piece of shit car went silent. 

"Goddamn it!" She shouted, kicking beneath the wheel in the general direction of the engine. She twisted the key again, kicked the poor thing for good measure. This time, the engine roared to life.

 

To be fair, the little bastard took her smoothly enough across the Kolymskaya highway. What made the journey unpleasant wasn't the bumpy ride or the occasional merge onto the shoulder to restart the engine. No, it was the strangely familiar landscape that disturbed her. It brought about odd remnants of memories that Natasha hadn't really been expecting to reawaken. She worked out the flashes as they came to her, and eventually came to realize what the memories were of: she had hitch-hiked down the very same highway road for a mission sometime during the early 1960s. The mission was an unattainable mess in her head, the journey unpleasant enough, so she simply shook the thoughts away and pressed the pedal to the floor.

 

Even _less_ pleasant than that drive, though, was where she now found herself; trudging through the Siberian taiga with heavy, exhausted foosteps as she followed the frozen river bed north out of Oymyakon. The locals had been alarmingly helpful. Many of them were missing a loved one, or knew family in other nearby villages and towns that had children or aunts or mothers go missing. The more information she gathered, the more nervous she became. A twenty hour drive only to end up in Russia's equivalent of Twin Peaks? She wasn't a fan.

Several of the villages told her, haltingly, that there were strangers to the north. Near the base of the mountains which framed the rural town, some had seen people entering and leaving the hillside as if by magic. Monsters were rumored to reside amongst the thick, snow-bleached brush; guards, men in dark outfits and faceless helmets that stood out against the white landscape,men that carried huge rifles and barked orders and sometimes stumbled into Oymyakon bars to pick fights with locals. It sounded like Hydra, sleazy and disorganized as usual.

So Natasha had never been more unhappy to be right in her life when she pushed through a thicket of dry shrubbery and suddenly found herself face-to-face with a huge steel door. It was maybe twice her size, and easily ten feet wide. And like the villagers had said, it was, in fact, hollowed into the hillside. Her hackles raised as not a single one of the guards were in sight.

Natasha pulled her hood from her face, teeth chattering as the wind slashed at her cheeks. The door had a seal and a keypad next to it, one that Natasha had no trouble hacking. Inside, past the entrance of metal plating and industrial beams, a red alarm light flashed as she stepped forward. It was eerily silent, here in this secret Siberian tundra base, but Natasha could feel the presence of others. Careful to be as silent as possible, she retrieved her pistols from her belt and aimed them. Shapes moved in the darkness...or her mind was just playing tricks on her. Then, suddenly the lights flicked on — one at a time, in order — filling the corridor with a sickening yellowish glow.

“Natalia," said a reedy, low voice. "It has been so long.”

There was a man, tall and a bit wider than average, standing at the opposite end of the long corridor. Natasha recognized his voice immediately. Hardening herself against the manipulation and agonizing, triggering dialogue that was to come, she began striding forward, willing her knees not to lock in fear. Everything in her was screaming to turn around, to hide; this man knew her every weakness and without a second thought would tear her head apart. After all, he'd been just as embroiled in her unmaking all those years ago.

“Where’s the book, you bastard?” Natasha demanded, wrists extended as she aimed her new wrist-mounted launcher. Her batons were attached safely to a clip on her suit, as were her guns, but she had only decided to use them in a worst-case scenario.

“Madame misses you, Natalia.” Lights flickered in the corridor once again. The panels in the metal wall on either side of Natasha slid open, revealing that the hallway served as a viewing stage of sorts. Natasha faltered as she saw what each room on the other side of the glass held.

On her left, a painfully familiar gymnasium filled with military style obstacle courses, punching bags, mats, and weapon racks. On her right, a gray-painted room boasting at least a dozen bunk beds. Handcuffs hung from the frames of some, lockers and chests lined the room.

Natasha felt bile rise in her throat when she realized what she was seeing and what it implied. She fell to her knees with the force of it, spilling her Oymyakon breakfast over the riveted, rusted floor.

“No need for that,” the man muttered with a hint of disdain. “This isn’t even the facility you were trained in. Do not be so dramatic.”

“Madame — She’s been dead for years,” Natasha croaked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Madame B had taken a bullet between her wrinkled eyebrows, courtesy of her favorite mentee. Natasha stood on wobbling knees, one hand braced against the wall. 

The man shrugged. “Perhaps physically. But her research and dedication to the Red Room lives on.As does her memory, I see.” He stepped from the dim end of the corridor; she felt revulsion build in her stomach once again. “Ah, mine does as well. I would have been heartbroken if you forgot me.”

She couldn’t remember his name — he’d probably never given them one to use, other than _comrade_. But she could see his face as it had been thirty years ago. He’d only been a little older than the girls themselves. Natasha had thought his cruelty matched the other handlers…maybe even surpassed it.

“You shattered Vladlena’s ankles when she tried to escape.” Natasha lowered her wrists hesitantly,  ignoring the call to reach for her guns in the back loop of her belt. She shifted her stance as she approached, slowly, and lifted her fists once again. He would not get quick death. “She had a sparring session with Anya the next day; Anya showed as much mercy as you did.”

“Hm. The fastest session in our history, I believe.” He stepped forward the same time Natasha did, mouth twisted in a horrible grin. “Do not be jealous though. You were our greatest success, Natalia. And our greatest failure, in many ways.” He swept his arms to the side. “This last round of testing did not go as well as we anticipated. Truly, you and the Asset were special.”

Now her strides lengthened, closing the distance between them with a quickness that seemed to make him nervous.

“Some of us believe that we are past our prime, that we could not recreate the results even if we were at the peak of power.” Her former handler raised his fist in the air, and on that cue several panels in the wall behind him slid open, revealing a line of agents dressed in white camouflage.

Her steps faltered only for a moment, but then Natasha launched herself in a sprint, carrying herself quicker towards him. Something fell on his face, perhaps that mask of false bravado, and as in his haste to shove past the wall of guards, he nearly tripped.

The camouflaged Hydra agents ran towards her. She waited, and waited, and waited until they were nearly upon her, and then Natasha launched herself in the air using a foot planted firmly against the chest of the agent in the middle.

She counted twelve heads as she flipped in the air above them before landing with a resounding thud in front of her retreating handler. She flicked her wrist as she straightened up, pulling herself of a height with his eyes. They looked watery, frightened.

She smirked, and notched her thumb into the divot of the device on her wrist. Fingers curled into a tight, angry fist, Natasha gently placed knuckles against his Adam’s apple, her palm facing upwards.

“This is for all of them, and this is for me, and this is for James,” she hissed, and let loose one of the vibranium projectiles into his throat at point-blank range. "And for any of your victims who will never be known."

Her former handler fell to the ground, seizing with the force of the electricity that ran through him, and then went still. Twelve pairs of eyes lifted towards her. Natasha grimaced and quickly switched her pistols out.

“Thanks for waiting, boys. Ready?” She bounced on her feet and rolled her shoulders.

They rushed her.

Three she took out with bullets — _shk shk shk_ into a heart, a throat, and a forehead respectively — they fell backwards, slowing the other nine with their weight. Several were agile enough to dodge their fallen brothers. Those two, four and five, she took down with some classic blunt force trauma; catching them as they ran towards her and using her momentum and height difference to clash their temples together. Six she threw to the side as she dodged punches from the remaining agents, scurrying out from the center of the fight before they could fully surround her. She’d caught a fist to her jaw and her ears were ringing — they were getting too close for her guns. That meant it was time for her batons to come out to play.

Natasha flicked her wrists, unholstering them from the attachments in her suit. They slid into her palms, feeling like that natural extension of her arm. There was even a victorious moment where, as she turned the electric currents on, her enemies took a collective step back.

Seven and eight were slower and less fortunate. Natasha caught each of them in the torso with hard slashes, pushing them off already unsteady feet. In the same instance, she dropped to one knee and spun, swinging her other leg upwards to land forceful kicks to their groins. Nine caught her hair in his fist, yanking her upwards a she shouted and reached backwards to claw at his face. She managed to get her fingers around the back of his neck, dropping on the balls of her feet and using her leverage to pull him over her, sending him crashing into ten. Natasha ran towards them and finished off with an elbow to their faces, ensuring they were out cold or dead. Ten rushed her, his eyes wild with stupid fear, and Natasha leapt at him, choked him out with thighs locked tight around his airway.

Eleven, by that time, had lifted himself from his prone position at the wall and was upon her. He dragged her away from his fallen comrade and caught her arms behind her back, twisting her shoulders painfully. Twelve (almost forgotten), stepped forward.

“It’s almost a shame,” he said in heavily accented English, an index finger tracing Natasha’s jawline. “We have heard what they trained the Widows to do.” Behind her, eleven chuckled. His companion drew large fists back and railed her torso with hard, unmerciful punches, stealing her breath.

“Would have been a good morale boost.” Eleven agreed. He jerked her baton away and tossed it to the side.

Natasha, boiling with hatred, turned her head and sunk her teeth into twelve’s finger. She drew blood and bit until she felt the resistance of bone; only letting go when his free hand caught her square in the face.

“That’s going to be a nasty bruise I can’t cover up,” Natasha growled. She spit blood at him. “Good thing contouring has made a come back.”

With that, she lurched her head forward and then back, smashing her skull into eleven’s nose. He howled as the sound of tearing cartilage filled the room, and Natasha squirmed out of his distractedly weak grip. Her batons had been abandoned on the ground so she retrieved one, twisted her torso and hand downwards so she could bring the momentum back up. The vibranium rod caught him in the jaw; he dropped immediately, heavy with unconsciousness.

Natasha turned on her heel to her final enemy, mouth ready for her next quip…just in time to see his fist about to connect with her face.

The force of it sent her flying back. Her temple connected with one of the fastenings on the wall and the resulting blood smeared down the observation glass.

“Stupid bitch,” twelve sneered, shaking his fingers out.“You should have stayed in hiding. Maybe that way you wouldn’t have to pay with your life.”

She laughed, dropping her chin to her chest in a guide of exhaustion. The man strode forward slowly, cautious despite her apparently weakened state. When he was close enough Natasha stiffened her body, dropped to the ground in a straight, plank pose. She pressed her hands against the wall, pulled her feet up as she pushed, and launched herself back onto (slightly unsteady legs).

She wondered if this agent had been given some form of serum, because he was just as quick.

Natasha choked, clawing desperately at the hands that had suddenly caught her throat between them. He squeezed cruelly, sick delight shining in the dark eyes she was close enough to see into.

He said nothing, only pulled his elbows back — and then he slammed her head into the observation glass.

 _Crack!_ Natasha cried out, the noise choked and weak.

Again. _Crack!_

Her feet kicked uselessly, unable to catch his ankles or the weak points behind his knees.

 _Crack! Crack!_ _Crac-_

The glass splintered and broke, cutting her scalp as it gave and toppled her backwards into the gymnasium on the other side. The man fell on top of her and wasted no time in getting his knees on either side of her hips, pressing all of his weight down into her ribs and throat. 

“Shame this is the only way I could get you on your back, Widow,” he sneered, tightening his fingers. She was starting to see black at the corners of her vision — worse, his grip was so steel-like that she couldn’t even manage a witty comeback.

Desperate, her hands patted the floor to either side, and she felt a sting of pain when the crook of her thumb brushed a shard of glass. Natasha peeled it up off the ground with her fingers, fumbling as the last few seconds of air left her, and then she managed to center her strength.

Her left arm swung in an arc up towards the man, and he only had a split second to react to the glinting shard coming towards him before it was buried in his temple.

His grip slackened just a degree and Natasha squirmed, managing to free her ankles from his legs and kick at his stomach.

With a dying gurgle he fell backwards and rolled onto his side. Natasha sprung up, hands rubbing at her throat as she wheezed and her lungs search for air hungrily.

“B-” she choked. When she shook her head to ground herself, it felt as if her brain was rattling around in the emptiness of her skull. It probably was.

“Bastard,” she managed, and then trudged over his prone form.

 

The book was in her handler’s quarters at the end of the corridor, tucked amongst other stacks of research papers and Soviet-published novels on the history of neuropsychology. References were made to Natasha herself and the success of James’s torture; as she thumbed through them she realized what she wanted to do.

She retrieved her batons, her pack that she had slipped off before the fight began, and her guns. The guns she almost emptied into her handler’s face, frozen in horror. She kept a few for the final goon that had nearly choked her to death, and was not ashamed to admit that a majority of the rounds found home in the flesh between his legs.

And then, over the course of the next two hours, Natasha turned her attention to collecting any remaining collateral scattered throughout the base. There were records, filing cabinets full of information on some of the subjects the location had housed in the past five years. Young women, of course, deemed the least psychologically stable by old debunked Soviet research. She kept files on these girls, intending to save them so that families and friends might have closure. It made her wonder, very briefly, if _she_ had had anyone longing for closure. Among a pile of papers and books on her handler’s desk, buried under a stack of headshots and lab reports, she found an envelope full of U.S. Dollars, euros, and a handful of rubles.

Next to it was Barnes’s control book, unassuming red leather and all his misery contained within. Natasha ran her palm over the cover, feeling her eyes well with tears.

She’d done it.

Of all the things that she tossed into the fire she started in the gymnasium, she kept only two. The command book, tucked carefully in an inner pocket of her parka near her heart, and the envelope.

Stapled to the back of it, she’d noticed a familiar-looking business card, along with a list of young women living in Novosibirsk.

 

It only took the most basic of detective work to find where Sasha was staying.

She picked the lock on his hotel room door with ease, too. She didn’t make a single sound as she wandered through the out of date inset kitchen, tiptoeing around scattered piles of purses and women’s winter wear on the living room floor. Her head was already throbbing from a very likely concussion, so she tried not to focus too much on where the owners of that clothing currently were. The beds in that Siberian tundra base, after all, had been empty.

He was asleep in an armchair in front of the T.V. in the bedroom. The mattress and dressers had been pushed up against the window in a barricade.

If she had wanted to send a message, maybe she would have taken the stealthy approach through the window. But this was not a case where she was looking to intimidate.

 _No,_ she thought, reminding herself of the purses and money and clothes and the empty beds and files of young women. _No, this was a kill mission of her very own._

Natasha shoved muzzle of her gun against his temple, waking him with a start. She made sure to wait until he was fully conscious so he could hear her pull back the safety.

Sasha’s palms came up in the air in a sign of surrender; he gulped nervously. She watched as a bead of sweat dripped into his collar. She tightened her finger on the trigger. Firearm safety could fuck itself.

“You’re going to give me that tablet back,” she demanded in English, voice as cold as the steel in her palm. “And then you’re going to tell me where you’re keeping your plane and the keys.me And then I’m going to squeeze this trigger and splatter your brains all over the wall.”

Sasha’s mouth curled unflatteringly. He bared yellowed teeth at her in a display, but there was fear in his eyes like any other man faced with his end. <“A fast death? You will not be so lucky when they find you and end you. We hear stories of their work and they pay for our silence. Sometimes they pay for flesh, too. Do you think they care about one bitch?”>

“What _is_ it with men and that word, nowadays?” Natasha growled and shoved the gun against his head hard. “You’ve been ferrying people to something worse than death.” She stared at his wild eyes for a long moment before she tossed the gun aside. It clattered on the cheap, stripped linoleum in the attached kitchen. Sasha’s eyes darted from her to it and back — and then he made the mistake of jerking away (as if he could _ever_ be fast enough to trick her).

Natasha shot her elbow out, burrowing it into his windpipe with a cruelty that would have nauseated her only a few days ago. The man fell to his knees, hands clutching his throat. Natasha replaced his tobacco-stained fingers with her own, gripping as tight as the Hydra agent had gripped her. She walked them backwards so she could hold him against the wall, his feet kicking for purchase as his toes dangled just a few inches above the ground.He kicked at her uselessly. She could take the blows from an untrained, out of shape old man, even as exhausted and bruised and damaged as she currently was.

“If I told you what horrors your silence and support fed, would you feel guilt?” Natasha dug her fingers into his throat until her nails drew a trickle of blood. Sasha gasped and tried to pry them off, clumsy and desperate, but Natasha held tight. She steadied her center of balance by widened her stance and leaned into her forearm pressed against his sternum. His face transitioned into a darker shade of red, the shade of venuous blood. Natasha tilted her head. “Or maybe you would just be disappointed that someone finally found out that secret and ruined your source of income?”

Sasha’s wheezing had quieted a little; now he simply looked dejected, hopeless. A few more seconds and he would be unconscious or dead. “The plane is in the shed around back, down the dirt road. The keys — they —”

She scowled and let go of his neck, her fingers leaving white streaks that filled back with color as she observed him. He pawed at his throat for a moment, fallen to his knees, and then managed one huge breath. She hoped it was painful.

“I — I—”

“Would have been delighted to stand idle and let more people suffer just for the sake of some spending money.” Natasha sneered at him. “What were you going to spend it on, hm? Monthly porn subscription?”

Her kick caught his side violently. The wheezing cough he let out made her assume she’d fractured a rib or two.

“The best part of this is: I don’t even need you alive.” Natasha swallowed the hatred that had been building and took a step back. “But I need _someone_ to tell the rest of those bastards that I’m coming for them.” She squatted down in front of the cowering man.

“So you tell them, Sashenka,” Natasha sneered disdainfully, “If you see any of them again, you tell them that weak, traitorous Natalia is coming for them. She’s coming for them, and she’s going to rip their hearts out of their chests.”

She threw the man backwards and stood, flickering unfamiliar blonde hair over her shoulder. The gun on the floor was retrieved lazily, and Natasha examined it for a moment before she turned back to Sasha one last time. There was a line of spit hanging from his open, panting mouth, and he looked close to tears.

“You are like them, the men you hate. You are just as evil.”

Natasha regarded him coolly, her face a perfect mask (maybe for the first time in the last several months).

“No,” she finally said. She bent and searched his pockets, finally fishing his keys out. She held them up to the light. “No I’m not. You’re right, a bullet is too fast and merciful for you.” She spit at his feet. “But I got a second chance, and so should you. Just pray that you never cross me again — I don’t believe in thirds.”

“<You’re right, though. A bullet is too good for you.”> Natasha fished the keys to the shed that he housed the plane in from her pocket, holding them up to the light so he could see them. “Pray that you never cross me again. I’m not too keen on the idea of second chances.”

 

She landed the plane in the familiar field outside of Novosibirsk, and the second she touched down her stomach soured. Her head buzzed, her fingers twitched, and she realized she had walked into a trap. Natasha twisted at the waist, frantic to unbuckle her seatbelt as she heard footsteps approaching and guns being loaded. She reached for her pistols in the same motion, avoiding the flurry of bullets that shattered the windshield of the plane just a moment later.

One bounced around the cockpit and glanced off the metal underside of the copilot’s chair, grazing her thigh before it nestled in metal embrace of the engine behind her. She made to cry out and then slapped a hand over her mouth, crawling silently towards the back of the little plane. She checked her clips with a curse, realizing she had just one round left.

“Come out, little spider. We know it’s you,” called a voice. The plane was riddled with another flurry of bullets. Natasha counted magazines of thirty each, and maybe five different sources. She could take that easily on her best days, but with her ankle and running on 72 hours without any sleep, she wasn’t too sure of the odds.

Natasha shifted her weight and slid the bag off her shoulders, removing Barnes’s command book. Her fingers graced over the auburn leather mournfully, and then she tucked it into her coat.If she was going to end up riddled with bullets, the least she could do was make sure the book was destroyed along with her organs. She hadn’t come all this way just to fail J…— the mission, after all.

“Black Widow,” a different voice sing-songed from the west. Natasha pulled herself up against the opposite door of the plane, keeping her head down. “Come out to pla—”

“Shit!” screamed one of the speaker’s companions. A bullet had just ripped the front of his throat open. Natasha ducked down again when the rain of bullets began a moment later, breathing hard. Three to go, she thought, and checked her clip.

It was almost empty.

The back of her head hit the door. She lifted her face to the sky and shut her eyes, murmuring a curse.

Had it been one of the highlights of her life, unloading two clips into the face of one of her original handlers? Yes.

Had it been worth it? Well…not exactly.

“Move forward, cut off both those doors. Surround the plane — Romanoff’s not getting out of this one.”

 _Maybe not,_ Natasha thought bitterly. _But I’m taking you idiots out with me if it’s the last thing I do._

She waited until the footsteps moved closer to the door in front of her. She could hear them, three sets, and two were closer to the door she was pressed against. The single pair in front of her was moving quicker, so when it arrived first Natasha pushed herself forward, using as much energy as she could muster and sending it to her thighs.

The door burst open when her feet connected, pulled from its hinge. It slammed heavily into the approaching gunner, and Natasha took only the length of his startled, pain cry to throw herself from the plane and towards him. Everything felt sluggish as she exerted her remaining energy into the fight. Her head was pounding hard enough that she had to grit her teeth so it wouldn’t distract her.

Natasha focused. She slapped her palm over his mouth at the same moment her legs locked around his torso, and she threw her weight to the side to bring him to the ground with her. He easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but Natasha didn’t give him any time to recover from his shock — she lifted herself off of his prone form and brought her fist into his face several times, connecting with his nose and then his jaw. It all happened in the span of a half-dozen seconds, but she pulled away feeling like she’d been fighting an eternity.

Wincing, Natasha pressed her hand into her bruised ribs, allowing herself the space of a breath to recuperate. The unconscious gunner’s friends had heard the commotion, and she had no time to consider her next move before it was upon her.

She crouched down, watching the heavy pairs of boots back away and then move towards the front as the two intended to investigate the noises. Taking a deep breath, Natasha grabbed hold of the step bars attached to the bottom of the plane and swung herself under the carriage, using the momentum to slide to the other side behind the gunners.

“What—” one managed, lifting his assault rifle to waist as he turned to face her. She sprung to her feet (much slower than she usually would have, wincing), and spun on her uninjured foot, using the momentum to connect her boot with his wrist. She cried out in pain as the force rocked through her injured leg — she didn’t want to see what the fracture looked like now. It probably looked about as good as it felt.

The goon’s rifle landed some feet away in the tall grass, and he made the mistake of taking his eyes off her to turn his head to search for it. His companion was behind him, probably ready to pull his own trigger once his friend was out of the way, so Natasha quickly thought of a line of attack that would keep him between the two of them, allowing her cover to —

There was a quick, rapid burst of fire. Something zipped by her head, and something else buried itself into her left shoulder. She twisted with the impact, crying out once again as her hand came up to the wound. It didn’t feel like a through-and-through.

The gunner in front of her was wide-eyed. Natasha watched as he turned to look behind him before slumping to the ground, gurgling.

He fell face-forward at Natasha’s feet, blood from the bullet that tore through his lungs seeping into the dirt.

The last goon, several paces away, was still pointing his rifle in the place where his companion had been standing.

Natasha pressed her hand into her shoulder a little harder. “Well, that was way too eerily famili—”

Eyes wide, she rolled to the side as his finger pulled at the trigger. She scrambled towards a rock in the field, just wide and tall enough for her to get cover.

“That was _rude!_ ” She screeched, aware that she’d been grazed several times by his surprise attack. “You’re supposed to let me get off a good one liner before we throw down.”

“You were once the pride of Department X, Widow. Defecting has made you slow, America has made you weak. It is better to put you out of your misery than let this nonsense continue.”

Natasha rolled her eyes as his footsteps neared, digging her nails into the dirt by her hips.“I really don’t have time for a lecture on the pitfalls of capitalism compared to the glory of communism.” She peeked out from behind the rock, ducking back down as he volleyed another string of bullets in her cover’s direction. Bits of the boulder chipped off and scratched at her arms and cheeks. “Got enough of those to last a lifetime back in ‘school’.”

“Shut your mouth and die with dignity, you stupid cunt,” the goon responded. Natasha’s eyes twitched and she kicked herself upward, bracing the back of her hands on her shoulder. Her palms connected with a heated muzzle and she shoved towards the sky with a shout.

The gunner stumbled backwards. Natasha leapt over the top of the rock and launched herself forward once again, hands at her belt to retrieve her garrote.

He was right, though. She’d gotten slow. He was faster.

The rifle came up before she could react, and she realized as time slowed down that this might be it; its muzzle was pointed square at her chest.

 _Well shit,_ she sighed internally, but realized that she didn’t want that to be her last thought to be something so anticlimactic and unsentimental, so she conjured up an image of the stupid Christmas card photoshoot Peter had roped them all into, before everything went to shit. She thought of Steve’s arm wrapped warmly around her waist, Sam’s forearm resting on her shoulders as he gave her bunny ears, and the sound of them all grumbling and laughing as Vision dematerialized and ruined yet _another_ good shot.

The sound of the rifle was deafening, but the pain was worse. It spread throughout her stomach — lower than she thought but still bad, if not worse. Her momentum didn’t cease, however, and even as the feeling of the bullet ricocheting around her insides and exiting near her lower back shot through her, Natasha uncoiled the garrote wire and wrapped it around her final enemy’s throat.

“It’s the twenty-first century —” she coughed, splattering his wide-eyed expression with droplets of blood. “Not 1902, you fucking misogynist. You can’t just call women that anymore. Men these days, I swear.”

And with that, Natasha put her remaining energy into pulling the garrote tight; tight enough to choke the life from him; tight enough to break the tension of his skin; tight enough to slice cleanly through his jugular and lodge itself deeper into the base of his neck.

She fell next to his quickly paling body, shoulder-to-shoulder, as he gagged and choked on his own blood. His hands came up, clamping down desperately to stop the flow, but Natasha raised her elbow and knocked them away exasperatedly.

“Hey, what’d you guys get here on, by the way?” she asked with a wheeze, her own palms pressed tight against the trio of holes in her torso. “I need to get back to my ride.”

His eyes darted to the left, panicked but dining as the life left him. Despite the pain radiating up her spine and making her dizzy, Natasha pulled herself up on her ass to follow his gaze. In the thicket were three shiny black motorcycles.

Natasha’s mouth spread in a bloody, weary grin.“Thanks. At least I get to die in style.”

 

 

 

Natasha slumped further down in her seat. The rumbling engine groaned, and she felt a pang of desire to mirror the noise. Stupid idiot she was, she’d managed to haul herself onto the least sturdy of the three. She’d used the last remaining bullets to shoot the rear tires out of the others and the gas tank of her (Sasha’s) plane, just in case that first gunner woke up and went looking for an escape vehicle.The streetlights zipped past her in a haze and she had to struggle to keep her eyes open, to keep them focused. The blood that poured from her slipped between her fingers, sticking her parka to her skin and the wound. A few times the bike jostled her over a bump in the road and she cried out in pain, and once the sensation threatened to jolt her into unconsciousness.

“<Turn left here>,” the Russian map app suddenly chirped, and Natasha threw all of her weight to the side. The steering protested with a loud grating noise, sending sparks into her face and the pavement, but Natasha grit her teeth against the pain and held fast. It zipped around the corner and then —

She could see the lights of her pilot’s make-shift air strip in the distance, illuminated against the bite of dark nightfall. The lights grew closer and closer, closer still, and Natasha heard shouting as the bike hit something immoveable. The front wheel caught, the back came up, and Natasha was flung from the back of it. She landed in the snow on her back, the breath knocked out of her.

The stars shown above her, dancing against the backdrop of a cold Russian sky. She had been born under this sky — it looked like she would die under it, too. Natasha let out a wet, wheezing laugh, and gravity sent the splattering of blood from her lungs raining down on her face. Footsteps approached her, and in the darkness that crept steadily, curling like fog in her brain to take her vision…Natasha thought she could make out the intricate, geometric lines of golden tattoos.


End file.
